LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 
MRS. 

ERIC   SCHMIDT 


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Mr.  Justin  McCarthy 


A  HISTORY 


OF 


OUR  OWN  TIMES 

FROM  THE 

ACCESSION  OF  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

TO  THE 

GENERAL  ELECTION  OF  1880 

BY 

JUSTIN  McCarthy 

Author  OF  "The  Four  Georges,"  "Sir  Robert  Peel,"  etc. 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTIOK,    AND   SUPPLEMBKTARY   CHAPTERS   BRINGING  THE   WORK   DOWN   TO 

MR.  Gladstone's  resignation  op  the  premiership  (march,  1894)  ; 

AND   a   new   index 


BY 

G.  MERCER  ADAM 

Author  of  "A  PRficis  of  English  History,"  etc. 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  I. 


mm 


NEW  YORK  AND  CHICAGO 

HOOPER,  CLARKE  &  CO. 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  i8q4, 

B/ 

UNITED  STATES  BOOK  COMPANY. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  L 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Introduction,   by  the  Editor,            ....  v-xii 

I.  The  King  is  Dead  !  Long  Live  the  Queen  !        .         .  i 

II.  Statesmen  and  Parties, 20 

III.  Canada  and  Lord  Durham, 37 

IV.  Science  and  Speed, 63 

V.  Chartism 77 

VI.  Question  de  Jupons 98 

VII.  The  Queen's  Marriage, no 

VIII.  The  Opium  War 127 

IX.  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Whig  Ministry,         .        .  142 

X.  Movements  in  the  Churches 159 

XI.  The  Disasters  of  Cabul. 174 

XII.  The  Repeal  Year 210 

XIII.  Peel's  Administration 234 

XIV.  Free-trade  and  the  League, 250 

XV.  Famine  forces  Peel's  Hand, 278 

XVI.  Mr.  Disraeli 296 

XVII.  Famine,  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue,  319 

XVIII.  Chartism  and  Young  Ireland 337 

XIX.  Don  Pacifico 368 

XX.  The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,         ....  394 

XXI.  The  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park,           .        .        .     •   .  416 

XXII.  Palmerston 431 

XXIII.  Birth  of  the  Empire ;  Death  of  "The  Duke,"          .  464 

XXIV.  Mr.  Gladstone, 492 

XXV.  The  Eastern  Question, 504 

XXVI.  Where  was  Lord  Palmerston? 537 

XXVII.  The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea, 564 

XXVIII.  The  Close  of  the  War, 587 

XXIX.  The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey,        ,  609 


INTRODUCTION. 

BY   THE    EDITOR. 


The  period  embraced  in  Mr.  McCarthy's  instructive  and 
entertaining  "  History  of  Our  Own  Times"  is,  to  use  a 
convenient  though  relative  term,  that  of  Modern  England, 
from  the  era  of  Queen  Victoria's  Accession.  With  the 
passing  years,  not  only  the  term  "  Modem  England,"  but 
the  title  Mr.  McCarthy  has  chosen  for  his  work,  must  be- 
come a  misnomer;  though  while  Her  Majesty's  beneficent 
reign  lasts  (and  distant  be  the  day  of  its  close !)  it  may  be 
proper  to  regard  our  author's  survey  of  it  as  contemporary 
annals.  Already,  however,  the  era  of  the  Accession,  and 
even  that  of  the  Crimean  War  and  the  Indian  Mutiny,  is, 
to  a  large  portion  of  the  present  generation,  a  remote  one. 
Still  more  remote  does  it  seem  as  the  ranks  are  thinned 
of  the  great  public  personages  whose  careers  shed  lustre 
on  the  early  years  of  the  reign.  Other  actors,  moreover, 
have  taken  their  places,  and  with  the  crowding  on  the 
stage  of  the  new  figures  that  fill  the  foreground  in  the 
drama  of  the  nation's  life,  the  older  figures  naturally  lose 
that  freshness  of  interest  which  made  them  both  near  and 
real  to  their  own  generation.  As  with  men,  so  with  meas- 
ures. New  and  absorbing  issues  have  arisen  to  take  the 
place  of  those  that  have  been  threshed  out,  and  have 
either  been  placed  in  the  receptacles  of  history  or  have 
reappeared  in  newer  and  more  democratic  guise.  Yet 
even  in  our  thronged  and,  as  we  boast,  philosophical  age, 
we  do  not  summarily  dispose  of  the  old  issues,  however 
remote  they  may  be  from   immediate    practical   interest. 


vi  Introduction. 

They  still  have  their  lessons,  for  the  present  as  well  as  for 
the  coming  time,  and  are  of  value  as  we  discern,  and  have 
the  wisdom  to  profit  by,  the  teachings  which  they  embody 
of  experience.  Herein  lies,  in  some  degree  at  least,  the 
work  and,  as  he  may  succeed  in  pointing  the  moral,  the 
worth  of  the  historian. 

Yet  we  would  not  mistake  the  aim  and  character  of  Mr. 
McCarthy's  History,  for  whatever  other  merits  the  work 
has — and  it  has  many — it  is  not  obtrusively  didactic,  nor 
does  it  come  before  us  as  philosophy.     Its  author's  design, 
as  befits  a  sober  and  veracious  chronicle  of  the  feverish 
times  in  which  we  live,  is  much  more  simple,  as  well  as 
useful.     Were  we  asked  in  a  sentence  to  label  the  work, 
we  should  say  that  it  is  a  well-informed,  trustworthy,  and 
entertaining  survey  of  recent  and  contemporary  events  in 
the  history  of  the  British  nation,  interspersed  with  vivid 
sketches  of  the  chief  public  characters  that  have  figured 
on  the  political  and  military,  and,   incidentally,  on  the 
literary  and  national  stage,  in  the  past  sixty  years.     The 
"  History"  is  written  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  moderate 
Liberal,  with  great  impartiality  and  manifest  candor  and 
judiciousness.     While  putting  himself  imder  these  com- 
mendable restraints,  Mr.  McCarthy's  work  in  its  political 
aspects  is,  however,  neither  vapid  nor  colorless.     As  an 
Irishman   and   a   Home   Ruler,  he   has  his  own   special 
standpoint  and  his  own  views  and  opinions,  though  these, 
it  may  be  said,  never  lead  him  seriously  astray,  and  sel- 
dom cause  him  to  forget,   even  in  dealing  with   highly 
controversial  topics,  the  neutrality  of  the  historian.     Oc- 
casionally, his  dispassionateness  detracts  from  the  engross- 
ing interest  one  feels  in  a  more  fervidly  written  narrative, 
though  rare  are  the  passages  throughout  the  work  where 
the  attention  of  the  reader  is  suffered  to  flag.     While  the 
spirit  in  which  the  work  is  written  is,  as  we  have  said, 
studiously  impartial,  and  the  author  lives  and  moves  in 
a  world  of  common-sense,  his  History  is  neither  a  jeremiad 
nor  a  panegyric.     He  always  writes  with  discrimination, 


Introduction.  vU 

and,  when  occasion  calls,  he  awards  praise  or  apportions 
blame  without  regard  to  party  ties  or  deference  to  any 
judgment  but  his  own.  Even  the  superficial  reader  will 
be  struck  with  this  fine  candor  in  the  writer,  and  be  im- 
pressed with  the  fact  that  in  the  varied  political  portraiture 
with  which  the  book  abounds,  its  author  is  at  once  unprej- 
udiced and  just.  This  spirit  of  fairness  may  be  traced 
even  to  the  close  of  the  book,  where  the  political  questions 
in  which  Mr.  McCarthy  is  known  to  feel  strongly  might 
excuse  a  lapse  into  prejudice  and  a  betrayal  of  his  own 
party  predilections.  To  a  Parliamentarian  in  these  times, 
and  he  the  leader,  too,  of  a  party  in  the  House,  it  must 
have  cost  an  effort  to  be  as  fair  to  Beaconsfield  and  Salis- 
bury as  he  is  fair  to  Russell  and  Gladstone. 

While  Mr.  McCarthy  writes  in  the  spirit  we  have  indi- 
cated— as  a  Briton  rather  than  a  clansman — it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  his  History  comes  down  only  to  the 
year  1880.  Since  that  epoch,  British  politics  have  passed 
through  a  bitter  and  turbulent  era — the  era  of  Home  Rule 
agitation,  Socialistic  upheaval,  industrial  discontent,  and 
Radical  clamor.  But  though  our  author  has  not,  as  yet, 
ventured  to  deal  historically  with  this  period  of  legisla- 
tive obstruction  and  strife,  he  has  himself  been  a  partici- 
pant in  it,  and,  in  the  responsible  position  of  leader  of  a 
section  in  the  House  of  Commons  disturbing  to  British  lats- 
sez  /aire  and  insular  complaisancy,  he  has  controlled  his 
party  with  the  restraints  of  reason,  while  he  has  personally 
borne  himself  in  a  manner  to  command  the  respect  and 
confidence  of  the  sanest  minds  in  and  out  of  Parliament. 
What  this  attitude  implies  in  a  public  man  in  the  position 
and  of  the  calibre  of  the  member  for  Longford,  can  be 
realized  only  when  we  call  to  mind  the  gravity  of  national 
affairs,  and  the  position  of  parties,  split  up  into  factions 
seeking  too  often  only  their  own  ends,  in  the  English 
Parliament  during  the  past  two  decades.  To  maintain  a 
statesmanlike  sobriety  and  reserve  in  such  a  mutinous 
body  as  the  English  popular  Chamber  has  of  late  become. 


viii  Introduction. 

and  at  the  head  of  an  interest  which  has  sought  for  years, 
and  sought  in  vain,  for  the  redress  of  Ireland's  wrongs, 
is  to  manifest  qualities  of  heart  and  brain  that  should 
win  for  our  author  the  acclaim  of  all  liberty-loving,  pa- 
triotic, and  humane  peoples.  ' 
But  to  do  justice  to  Mr.  McCarthy — and  inadequate,  we 
fear,  is  the  present  attempt — is  to  require  one  to  do  much 
more  than  speak  of  him  as  a  politician  and  discreet  party 
leader  in  the  English  Parliament.  In  that  once  august 
Assembly,  though  he  has  a  well-recognized  position  and 
is  esteemed  a  most  useful  member  of  the  House,  his  polit- 
ical relations  with  the  Parliamentary  band  he  leads  have 
not  given  him  that  influence  in  the  councils  of  the  Liberal 
Party,  with  whom  he  acts,  to  which  his  indubitable  tal- 
ents and  great  literary  reputation  entitle  him.  This  is 
part  of  the  penalty  one  must  pay,  in  associating  with 
men  who  either  will  not  or  care  not  fully  to  understand 
your  grievance,  for  allegiance  to  an  unpopular  and  trou- 
blesome cause.  In  spite  of  this,  however,  Mr.  McCarthy 
is  not  without  the  assurance  that  his  presence  and  attitude 
in  the  House,  in  relation  to  the  question  of  Home  Rule  for 
Ireland,  are  helpful  to  the  great  cause  he  and  his  follow- 
ing have  at  heart,  in  educating  public  opinion  on  the  sub- 
ject as  well  as  in  silently  winning  over  friends  to  it, 
among  the  more  just  and  right-minded  Englishmen  both 
in  and  out  of  Parliament.  But  the  advocacy  of  Ireland's 
cause  in  the  Imperial  Parliament  is  but  a  part,  though  a 
considerable  part,  of  the  service  Mr.  McCarthy  has  ren- 
dered, and  happily  is  still  rendering,  to  his  adopted  coun- 
t^5^  In  the  exercise  of  his  versatile  gifts,  Mr.  McCarthy 
has,  for  a  generation  past,  won  an  honorable  position,  and 
gained  much  influence,  as  an  able  and  accomplished  jour- 
nalist. He  has  also  added  no  little  to  his  literary  reputa- 
tion as  an  entertaining  and  successful  novelist.  Nor  need 
we  point  to  the  interesting  literary  surveys,  appended  to 
each  of  the  present  volumes,  in  proof  of  our  author's  qual- 
ifications as  a  critic.      In  these  several  fields,  as  well  as  in 


Introduction.  \x 

the  enlivening  pages  of  his  History,  the  member  for 
Longford  has  not  only  achieved  success,  but  honestly  and 
meritoriously  earned  it. 

Despite  Mr.  McCarthy's  versatility,  and  what  he  may 
yet  accomplish  either  in  statesmanship  or  in  letters  (and 
there  is  room  for  further  achievement  in  both,  since  he  is 
still  in  his  prime)  his  chief  reputation,  we  venture  to 
think,  must  rest  on  the  effective  work  he  has  done  in  his 
"History."  It  would,  in  our  opinion,  be  difficult  to  rate 
too  highly  that  unique  performance,  for  unique  it  is  to 
write  a  narrative  of  contemporary  events  in  England  at 
once  so  full  and  perspicuous,  yet  without  unnecessary  and 
wearying  detail — a  narrative  that  is  bright  without  sensa- 
tion, rapid  without  slipping  or  falling  into  error,  and 
holds  the  attention  closely  throughout.  Still  more  diffi- 
cult would  it  be  to  overpraise  the  author's  balance  of 
mind,  his  transparent  honesty  of  purpose,  his  clear  judg- 
ment, and  the  faculty  he  possesses  in  an  eminent  degree 
of  inspiring  confidence.  For  these  safe  things  we  may 
well  forego  literary  brilliance  or  the  coruscations  of 
genius,  which,  if  we  could  even  trust  these  erratic  quali- 
ties, would  be  singularly  out  of  place  in  "  a  history  of  our 
own  times."  Nor  is  it  the  least  of  Mr.  McCarthy's  merits, 
that  the  lively  interest  he  manifestly  has  taken  in  the 
work  fashioned  by  his  hand  he  imparts  to  the  reader,  with 
the  faculty  of  seeing  things  in  proportion — a  great  point 
in  the  writing  or  reading  of  contemporary  history — while 
hfc  diffuses  some  of  his  own  cheery  optimism  and  imbues 
hi«  audience  with  his  strong  sense  of  what  is  both  just 
aiid  right.  Nor  are  the  artistic  qualities  of  the  litt&ateur 
aiid  the  higher  journalism  wanting  in  the  book.  There 
is  a  pleasing  art  of  arrangement  in  presenting  the  topics 
for  review  and  comment,  and  a  dramatic  power  of  intro- 
ducing, analyzing,  and  hitting  off  character.  Very  no- 
ticeable is  this  in  the  striking  and  vivid  portraits  given 
us  of  Melbourne,  O'Connell,  Wellington,  Russell,  Peel, 
Palmerston,     Cobden,    Bright,     Prince    Albert,    Disraeli, 


X  [ntroducfton. 

Gladstone,  and,    in   truth,    in   the   whole   series   of   pen- 
pictures  of  the  more  prominent  English  public  men  and 
statesmen  of  the  time.     In  these  studies,  Mr.  McCarthy 
shows,  at  least,  his  intellectual  sympathy  with  the  great 
personal  forces  which  have  been  instrumental  in  the  mak- 
ing of  modern  England,  and  his  admiration  for  those  types 
of  public  men  which  form  the  basis  of  the  national  char- 
acter.    Hardly  less   effective   is   the   compact,  yet   lucid 
and  interesting,  manner  in  which  the  great  public  ques- 
tions of  the  time  are  brought  forward  and  discussed,  and 
with  manifest  justice  to  both  sides,  as  well  as  to  the  par- 
ticipants in  the  controversies.     Here  again,  besides  the 
high  qualities  in  the  narrator,  there  is  remarkable  power 
shown  in  seizing  and  presenting  the  essential  points  of  the 
matter  under  review,  as  well  as  calmness  and  impartiality 
in  passing  judgment.     American  readers,  especially,  will 
thank  the  author  for  his  treatment  of  the  international 
questions  with  which  England  has  had  to  deal  during  the 
period  covered  by  the  work.     Here  the  dispassionateness, 
as  well  as  the  sense  of  justice,  in  the  historian  has  to  be 
commended,  particularly  in  the  chapters  dealing  with  the 
American  Civil  War,  and  its  pendent  questions— the  cruise 
of  the  Alabama,  and  the  results  of  the  Alabama  arbitration. 
In  the  treatment  of  these  topics,  which  long  vexed  the  dip- 
lomatic breast  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  Mr.  McCarthy 
has  meted  out   entire  justice    to  the    American   nation, 
without  in  any  measure  being  disloyal  to  England,  though, 
occasionally,  he  is  righteously  indignant  with  her.    A  broad 
humanity  characterizes  the  author's  discussion  of  other 
matters  touching  England's  relations  with  foreign  powers 
and  her  own  dependencies,  within  the  period  of  the  reign, 
including,  besides  the  greater  and  lesser  wars  in  which 
she  has  been  engaged,  such  matters  as  the  Indian  mutiny, 
the  Jamaica  rising,  the  Polish-insurrection,  and  the  rebel- 
lion in  Hungary. 

Not  less  worthy  of  note  is  Mr.  McCarthy's  wise  treat- 
ment of  home  affairs  within  the  kingdom,  including  the 


Introduction.  xi 

discussion  of  the  chief  burning  questions  of  the  period, 
from  the  era  of  the  Corn  Law  agitation  to  that  of  the  in- 
dustrial wars  and  socialistic  outbreaks  that  menace  Eng- 
land's domestic  peace  in  our  own  time.  His  views  on 
these  grave  topics,  though  rarely  profound,  are  usually- 
apt  and  sensible,  reaching  always  the  kernel  of  the  matter, 
and  presenting  it  with  kindly  and  conciliatory  comment 
and  a  large  admixture  of  humane  feeling.  Even  on  the 
subject  of  Irish  grievances,  when  our  author  suffers  him- 
self to  touch  on  them,  there  is  no  bitterness,  though  some 
pathos;  and  where  England  is  arraigned,  the  strictures 
are  comparatively  mild  and  reserved.  Unfortunately,  as 
we  have  previously  remarked,  the  History  breaks  off  just 
as  Home  Rule  comes  aggressively  on  the  political  scene, 
and  the  topic  on  which,  above  all  others,  we  should  like 
to  hear  Mr.  McCarthy  discourse  is  tantalizingly  denied  to 
us.  How  guardedly,  however,  he  would  have  dealt  with 
the  matter,  had  it  come  within  his  historical  purview,  we 
know  from  the  tone  and  tenor  of  his  treatment  of  earlier 
Irish  subjects,  such  as  Ribbonism,  the  Fenian  movement, 
Young  Ireland,  Irish  Church  disestablishment,  and  other 
Celtic  themes.  On  the  great  controversy,  and  remembering 
that,  if  he  wrote  at  all,  he  must  write  primarily  for  Eng- 
lishmen and  the  English-speaking  race  over  the  world,  it 
is  not  improbable  that  our  author  congratulated  himself 
that  he  was  not  called  upon  to  touch.  We  say  this,  of 
course,  not  because  Mr.  McCarthy  lacks  the  courage  of 
his  opinions,  but  because  the  topic  is  one  which  literature 
is  obviously  loath  to  take  up,  particularly  in  the  heat  of 
action,  aggravated  as  it  has  been  by  the  tactics  of  another 
wing  of  the  Irish  Nationalists  with  whom  our  author  has 
little  in  common,  and  whose  impolitic  attitude  in  the 
House  was  certain  to  defeat,  rather  than  to  advance,  the 
object  seriously  at  heart.  This  presumed  objection  to 
discussing  Home  Rule  prematurely,  and  before  the  ques- 
tion has  been  finally  disposed  of,  doubtless  our  author  has 
regarded  and,  it  may  be,  still  regards  with  favor,  though 


xii  Introduction. 

it  deprives  many  readers  of  his  History,  and  many  more  j 

of  the  friends  of  the  cause  on  both  sides  of  the  sea,  of  the  ] 

advantage  and  certitude  of  fully  knowing  his  opinions.  j 

In  allusion  to  this  topic,  and  to  it  chiefly,  it  is  with  no  ! 

feigned  regret  that  the  present  writer  feels  that  Mr. 
McCarthy  has  been  influenced,  doubtless  among  others,  by 
the  motive  we  have  ascribed  to  him,  and  has  not  again  | 

taken  up  his  pen  to  continue  his  History.  In  undertak- 
ing our  present  task,  still  less  feigned  was  the  hesitancy  | 
we  felt  in  venturing,  not,  of  course,  to  fill  our  author's  j 
place  (for  that  would  have  been  far  beyond  our  poor  ,i 
powers),  but  to  comply  with  the  popular  demand  for  an  | 
added  chapter  or  two,  covering,  in  brief  outline,  the  ] 
events  in  the  national  history  occurring  in  the  last  fifteen 
years.  Only  the  impression  made  upon  us  by  the  very  | 
general  request  for  a  continuation  of  the  History,  and  the 
conviction  in  our  mind  that  it  was  not  likely  soon  to  be 
met  by  the  author  himself,  could  have  emboldened  us  to 
supply  it.  In  stepping  reluctantly  into  the  breach,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  add  that  the  reader's  indulgence  is  asked, 
for  the  work  of  a  substitute. 


A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    KING    IS    dead!       LONG    LIVE    THE    QUEEN ! 

Before  half-past  two  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  June 
2oth,  1837,  William  IV.  was  lying  dead  in  Windsor  Castle, 
while  the  messengers  were  already  hurrying  off  to  Ken- 
sington Palace  to  bear  to  his  successor  her  summons  to  the 
throne.  The  illness  of  the  King  had  been  but  short,  and 
at  one  time,  even  after  it  had  been  pronounced  alarming,  it 
seemed  to  take  so  hopeful  a  turn  that  the  physicians  began 
to  think  it  would  pass  harmlessly  away.  But  the  King  was 
an  old  man — was  an  old  man  even  when  he  came  to  the 
throne — and  when  the  dangerous  symptoms  again  exhib- 
ited themselves,  their  warning  was  very  soon  followed  by 
fulfilment.  The  death  of  King  William  may  be  fairly 
regarded  as  having  closed  an  era  of  our  history.  With 
him,  we  may  believe,  ended  the  reign  of  personal  govern- 
ment in  England.  William  was,  indeed,  a  constitutional 
king  in  more  than  mere  name.  He  was  to  the  best  of  his 
light  a  faithful  representative  of  the  constitutional  prin- 
ciple. He  was  as  far  in  advance  of  his  two  predecessors 
in  understanding  and  acceptance  of  the  principle  as  his 
successor  has  proved  herself  beyond  him.  Constitutional 
government  has  developed  itself  gradually,  as  everything 
else  has  done  in  English  politics.  The  written  principle 
and  code  of  its  system  it  would  be  as  vain  to  look  for  as 
for  the  British  Constitution  itself.  King  William  still  held 
Vol.  I.— I 


2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

to  and  exercised  the  right  to  dismiss  his  ministers  when 
he  pleased,  and  because  he  pleased.  His  father  had  held 
to  the  right  of  maintaining  favorite  ministers  in  defiance 
of  repeated  votes  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  would  not 
be  easy  to  find  any  written  rule  or  declaration  of  constitu- 
tional law  pronouncing  decisively  that  either  was  in  the 
wrong.  But  in  our  day  we  should  believe  that  the  consti- 
tutional freedom  of  England  was  outraged,  or  at  least  put 
in  the  extremest  danger,  if  a  sovereign  were  to  dismiss  a 
ministry  at  mere  pleasure,  or  to  retain  it  in  spite  of  the 
expressed  wish  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Virtually, 
therefore,  there  was  still  personal  government  in  the  reign 
of  William  IV.  With  his  death  the  long  chapter  of  its 
history  came  to  an  end.  We  find  it  difficult  now  to  be- 
lieve that  it  was  a  living  principle,  openly  at  work  among 
us,  if  not  openly  acknowledged,  so  lately  as  in  the  reign 
of  King  William. 

The  closing  scenes  of  King  William's  life  were  un- 
doubtedly characterized  by  some  personal  dignity.  As  a 
rule,  sovereigns  show  that  they  know  how  to  die.  Per- 
haps the  necessary  consequence  of  their  training,  by  virtue 
of  which  they  come  to  regard  themselves  always  as  the 
central  figures  in  great  state  pageantry,  is  to  make  them 
assume  a  manner  of  dignity  on  all  occasions  when  the  eyes 
of  their  subjects  may  be  supposed  to  be  on  them,  even  if 
the  dignity  of  bearing  is  not  the  free  gift  of  nature.  The 
manners  of  William  IV.  had  been,  like  those  of  most  of 
his  brothers,  somewhat  rough  and  overbearing.  He  had 
been  an  unmanageable  naval  officer.  He  had  again  and 
again  disregarded  or  disobeyed  orders,  and  at  last  it  had 
been  found  convenient  to  withdraw  him  from  active  service 
altogether,  and  allow  him  to  rise  through  the  successive 
ranks  of  his  profession  by  a  merely  formal  and  technical 
process  of  ascent.  In  his  more  private  capacity  he  had, 
when  younger,  indulged  more  than  once  in  unseemly  and 
insufferable  freaks  of  temper.  He  had  made  himself  un- 
popular, while  Duke  of  Clarence,  by  his  strenuous  opposi- 


Tbe  King  is  Dead  f  Long  Live  the  Queen  !  3 

tion  to  some  of  the  measures  which  were  especially  desired 
by  all  the  enlightenment  of  the  country.  He  was,  for  ex- 
ample, a  determined  opponent  of  the  measures  for  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade.  He  had  wrangled  publicly, 
in  open  debate,  with  some  of  his  brothers  in  the  House  of 
Lords;  and  words  had  been  interchanged  among  the  royal 
princes  which  could  not  be  heard  in  our  day  even  in  the 
hottest  debates  of  the  more  turbulent  House  of  Commons. 
But  William  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  men  whom 
increased  responsibility  improves.  He  was  far  better  as  a 
king  than  as  a  prince.  He  proved  that  he  was  able  at 
least  to  understand  that  first  duty  of  a  constitutional  sov- 
ereign which,  to  the  last  day  of  his  active  life,  his  father, 
George  IH.,  never  could  be  brought  to  comprehend — that 
the  personal  predilections  and  prejudices  of  the  King  must 
sometimes  give  way  to  the  public  interest. 

Nothing  perhaps  in  life  became  him  like  the  leaving 
of  it.  His  closing  days  were  marked  by  gentleness  and 
kindly  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  those  around  him. 
When  he  awoke  on  June  i8th  he  remembered  that  it  was 
the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo.  He  expressed 
a  strong  pathetic  wish  to  live  over  that  day,  even  if  he 
were  never  to  see  another  sunset.  He  called  for  the  flag 
which  the  Duke  of  Wellington  always  sent  him  on  that 
anniversary,  and  he  laid  his  hand  upon  the  eagle  which 
adorned  it,  and  said  he  felt  revived  by  the  touch.  He  had 
himself  attended,  since  his  accession,  the  Waterloo  ban- 
quet; but  this  time  the  Duke  of  Wellington  thought  it 
would  perhaps  be  more  seemly  to  have  the  dinner  put  off, 
and  sent  accordingly  to  take  the  wishes  of  his  Majesty. 
The  King  declared  that  the  dinner  must  go  on  as  usual, 
and  sent  to  the  Duke  a  friendly,  simple  message  express- 
ing his  hope  that  the  guests  might  have  a  pleasant  day. 
He  talked  in  his  homely  way  to  those  about  him,  his 
direct  language  seeming  to  acquire  a  sort  of  tragic  dignity 
from  the  approach  of  the  death  that  was  so  near.  He  had 
prayers  read  to  him  again  and  again,  and  called  those  near 


4  A  History  of  Out  Own  Times. 

him  to  witness  that  he  had  always  been  a  faithful  believer 
in  the  truths  of  religion.  He  had  his  dispatch-boxes 
brought  to  him,  and  tried  to  get  through  some  business 
with  his  private  secretary.  It  was  remarked  with  some 
interest  that  the  last  official  act  he  ever  performed  was  to 
sign  with  his  trembling  hand  the  pardon  of  a  condemned 
criminal.  Even  a  far  nobler  reign  than  his  would  have 
received  new  dignity  if  it  closed  with  a  deed  of  mercy. 
When  some  of  those  around  him  endeavored  to  encourage 
him  with  the  idea  that  he  might  recover  and  live  many 
years  yet,  he  declared,  with  a  simplicity  which  had  some- 
thing oddly  pathetic  in  it,  that  he  would  be  willing  to  live 
ten  years  yet  for  the  sake  of  the  country.  The  poor  King 
was  evidently  under  the  sincere  conviction  that  England 
could  hardly  get  on  without  him.  His  consideration  for 
his  country,  whatever  whimsical  thoughts  it  may  suggest, 
is  entitled  to  some,  at  least,  of  the  respect  which  we  give 
to  the  dying  groan  of  a  Pitt  or  a  Mirabeau,  who  fears  with 
too  much  reason  that  he  leaves  a  blank  not  easily  to  be 
filled,  "Young  royal  tarry-breeks"  William  had  been 
jocularly  called  by  Robert  Burns  fifty  years  before,  when 
there  was  yet  a  popular  belief  that  he  would  come  all  right 
and  do  brilliant  and  gallant  things,  and  become  a  stout 
sailor  in  whom  a  seafaring  nation  might  feel  pride.  He 
disappointed  all  such  expectations ;  but  it  must  be  owned 
that  when  responsibility  came  upon  him  he  disappointed 
expectation  anew  in  a  different  way,  and  was  a  better 
sovereign,  more  deserving  of  the  complimentary  title  of 
patriot-king,  than  even  his  friends  would  have  ventured 
to  anticipate. 

There  were  eulogies  pronounced  upon  him  after  his  death 
in  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  is 
not  necessary,  however,  to  set  down  to  mere  court  homage 
or  parliamentary  form  some  of  the  praises  that  were  be- 
stowed on  the  dead  King  by  Lord  Melbourne  and  Lord 
Brougham  and  Lord  Grey.  A  certain  tone  of  sincerity, 
not  quite    free,  perhaps,  from   surprise,   appears  to  run 


The  King  is  Dead!  Long  Live  the  Queen!  5 

through  some  of  these  expressions  of  admiration.  They 
seem  to  say  that  the  speakers  were  at  one  time  or  another 
considerably  surprised  to  find  that,  after  all,  William 
really  was  able  and  willing  on  grave  occasions  to  subor- 
dinate his  personal  likings  and  dislikings  to  considerations 
of  state  policy,  and  to  what  was  shown  to  him  to  be  for 
the  good  of  the  nation.  In  this  sense  at  least  he  may  be 
called  a  patriot-king.  We  have  advanced  a  good  deal  since 
that  time,  and  we  require  somewhat  higher  and  more  posi- 
tive qualities  in  a  sovereign  now  to  excite  our  political 
wonder.  But  we  must  judge  William  by  the  reigns  that 
went  before,  and  not  the  reign  that  came  after  him;  and, 
with  that  consideration  borne  in  mind,  we  may  accept  the 
panegyric  of  Lord  Melbourne  and  of  Lord  Grey,  and  admit 
that  on  the  whole  he  was  better  than  his  education,  his 
early  opportunities,  and  his  early  promise. 

William  IV.  (third  son  of  George  III.)  had  left  no  chil- 
dren who  could  have  succeeded  to  the  throne,  and  the 
crown  passed,  therefore,  to  the  daughter  of  his  brother 
(fourth  son  of  George),  the  Duke  of  Kent.  This  was  the 
Princess  Alexandrina  Victoria,  who  was  bom  at  Kensing- 
ton Palace  on  May  24th,  1819.  The  Princess  was,  there- 
fore, at  this  time  little  more  than  eighteen  years  of  age. 
The  Duke  of  Kent  died  a  few  months  after  the  birth  of  his 
daughter,  and  the  child  was  brought  up  under  the  care  of 
his  widow.  She  was  well  brought  up:  both  as  regards 
her  intellect  and  her  character  her  training  was  excellent. 
She  was  taught  to  be  self-reliant,  brave,  and  systematical. 
Prudence  and  economy  were  inculcated  on  her  as  though 
she  had  been  born  to  be  poor.  One  is  not  generally  in- 
clined to  attach  much  importance  to  what  historians  tell 
us  of  the  education  of  contemporary  princes  or  princesses  ; 
but  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  Princess  Victoria  was 
trained  for  intelligence  and  goodness. 

"The  death  of  the  King  of  England  has  everywhere 
caused  the  greatest  sensation.  .  .  .  Cousin  Victoria  is  said 
to  have  shown  astonishing  self-possession.     She  undertakes 


6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

a  heavy  responsibility,  especially  at  the  present  moment, 
when  parties  are  so  excited,  and  all  rest  their  hopes  on 
her."     These  words  are  an  extract  from  a  letter  written 
on  July  4th,  1837,  by  the  late  Prince  Albert,  the  Prince 
Consort  of  so  many  happy  years.     The  letter  was  written 
to  the  Prince's  father,  from  Bonn.     The  young  Queen  had, 
indeed,  behaved  with  remarkable  self-possession.     There 
is  a  pretty  description,  which  has  been  often  quoted,  but 
will  bear  citing  once  more,  given  by  Miss  Wynn,  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  young  sovereign  received  the  new? 
of  her  accession  to  a  throne.     The  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, Dr.  Howley,  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  the  Mar- 
quis of  Conyngham,  left  Windsor  for  Kensington  Palace, 
where  the  Princess  Victoria  had  been  residing,  to  inform 
her  of  the  King's  death.     It  was  two  hours  after  midnight 
when  they  started,  and  they  did  not  reach  Kensington  until 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning.     "  They  knocked,  they  rang, 
they  thumped  for  a  considerable  time  before  they  could 
rouse  the  porter  at  the  gate ;  they  were  again  kept  waiting 
in  the  court-yard,  then  turned  into  one  of  the  lower  rooms, 
where  they  seemed  forgotten  by  everybody.     They  rang 
the  bell,  and  desired  that  the  attendant  of  the  Princess 
Victoria  might  be  sent  to  inform  her  Royal  Highness  that 
they  requested  an  audience  on  business  of  importance. 
After  another  delay,  and  another  ringing  to  inquire  the 
cause,  the  attendant  was  summoned,  who  stated  that  the 
Princess  was  in  such  a  sweet  sleep  that  she  could  not  ven- 
ture to  disturb  her.     Then  they  said,  'We  are  come  on 
business  of  state  to  the  Queen,  and  even  her  sleep  must 
give  way  to  that. '     It  did,   and  to  prove  that  she  did  not 
keep  them  waiting,  in  a  few  minutes  she  came  into  the 
room  in  a  loose  white  night-gown  and  shawl,  her  nightcap 
thrown  off,    and  her  hair  falling  upon  her  shoulders,  her 
feet  in  slippers,  tears  in   her  eyes,  but  perfectly  collected 
and  dignified."     The  Prime-minister,    Lord  Melbourne, 
was  presently  sent  for,  and  a  meeting  of  the  privy  council 
summoned  for  eleven  o'clock,  when  the  Lord  Chancellor 


The  King  is  Dead!  Long  Live  the  Queen!  7 

administered  the  usual  oaths  to  the  Queen,  and  her 
Majesty  received  in  return  the  oaths  of  allegiance  of  the 
cabinet  ministers  and  other  privy  councillors  present. 
Mr.  Greville,  who  was  usually  as  little  disposed  to  record 
any  enthusiastic  admiration  of  royalty  and  royal  person- 
ages as  Humboldt  or  Varnhagen  von  Ense  could  have  been, 
has  described  the  scene  in  words  well  worthy  of  quotation : 
"  The  King  died  at  twenty  minutes  after  two  yesterday 
morning,  and  the  young  Queen  met  the  council  at  Kensing- 
ton Palace  at  eleven.  Never  was  anything  like  the  first  im- 
pression she  produced,  or  the  chorus  of  praise  and  admir- 
ation which  is  raised  about  her  manner  and  behavior, 
and  certainly  not  without  justice.  It  was  very  extraordi- 
nary, and  something  far  beyond  what  was  looked  for.  Her 
extreme  youth  and  inexperience,  and  the  ignorance  of  the 
world  concerning  her,  naturally  excited  intense  curiosity 
to  see  how  she  would  act  on  this  trying  occasion,  and  there 
was  a  considerable  assemblage  at  the  palace,  notwithstand- 
ing the  short  notice  which  was  given.  The  first  thing  to 
be  done  was  to  teach  her  her  lesson,  which,  for  this  pur- 
pose, Melbourne  had  himself  to  learn.  .  .  .  She  bowed 
to  the  lords,  took  her  seat,  and  then  read  her  speech  in  a 
clear,  distinct,  and  audible  voice,  and  without  any  appear- 
ance of  fear  or  embarrassment.  She  was  quite  plainly 
dressed,  and  in  mourning.  After  she  had  read  her  speech, 
and  taken  and  signed  the  oath  for  the  security  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  the  privy  councillors  were  sworn,  the 
two  royal  dukes  first  by  themselves;  and  as  these  two  old 
men,  her  uncles,  knelt  before  her,  swearing  allegiance  and 
kissing  her  hand,  I  saw  her  blush  up  to  the  eyes,  as  if  she 
felt  the  contrast  between  their  civil  and  their  natural  rela- 
tions, and  this  was  the  only  sign  of  emotion  which  she 
evinced.  Her  manner  to  them  was  very  graceful  and  en- 
gaging; she  kissed  them  both,  and  rose  from  her  chair  and 
moved  toward  the  Duke  of  Sussex,  who  was  farthest  from 
her,  and  too  infirm  to  reach  her.  She  seemed  rather 
bewildered  at  the  multitude  of  men  who  were  sworn,  and 


8  A  History  of  Our  Chvn  Times. 

who  came,  one  after  another,  to  kiss  her  hand,  but  she  did 
not  speak  to  anybody,  nor  did  she  make  the  slightest  dif- 
ference in  her  manner,  or  show  any  in  her  countenance, 
to  any  individual  of  any  rank,  station,  or  party.  I  partic- 
ularly watched  her  when  Melbourne  and  the  ministers 
and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Peel  approached  her. 
She  went  through  the  whole  ceremony,  occasionally  look- 
ing at  Melbourne  for  instruction  when  she  had  any  doubt 
what  to  do,  which  hardly  ever  occurred,  and  with  perfect 
calmness  and  self-possession,  but  at  the  same  time  with  a 
graceful  modesty  and  propriety  particularly  interesting 
and  ingratiating. " 

Sir  Robert  Peel  told  Mr.  Greville  that  he  was  amazed  at 
"  her  manner  and  behavior,  at  her  apparent  deep  sense  of 
her  situation,  and  at  the  same  time  her  firmness. "  The 
Duke  of  Wellington  said  in  his  blunt  way  that  if  she  had 
been  his  own  daughter  he  could  not  have  desired  to  see 
her  perform  her  part  better.  "At  twelve,"  says  Mr. 
Greville,  "she  held  a  council,  at  which  she  presided  with 
as  much  ease  as  if  she  had  been  doing  nothing  else  all  her 
life;  and  though  Lord  Lansdowne  and  my  colleague  had 
contrived,  between  them,  to  make  some  confusion  with 
the  council  papers,  she  was  not  put  out  by  it.  She  looked 
very  well ;  and  though  so  small  in  stature,  and  witliout 
much  pretension  to  beauty,  the  gracefulness  of  her  manner 
and  the  good  expression  of  her  countenance  give  her,  on 
the  whole,  a  very  agreeable  appearance,  and,  with  her 
5^outh,  inspire  an  excessive  interest  in  all  who  approach 

her,   and  which  I    can't   help   feeling   myself In 

short,  she  appears  to  act  with  every  sort  of  good  taste  and 
good  feeling,  as  well  as  good  sense ;  and,  as  far  as  it  has 
gone,  nothing  can  be  more  favorable  than  the  impression 
she  has  made,  and  nothing  can  promise  better  than  her 
manner  and  conduct  do;  though,"  Mr.  Greville  somewhat 
superfluously  adds,  "  it  would  be  rash  to  count  too  confi- 
dently upon  her  judgment  and  discretion  in  more  weighty 
matters." 


The  King  is  Dead !  Long  Live  the  Queen  !  q 

The  interest  or  curiosity  with  which  the  demeanor  of  the 
yorung  Queen  was  watched  was  all  the  keener  because  the 
world  in  general  knew  so  little  about  her.  Not  merely 
was  the  world  in  general  thus  ignorant,  but  even  the 
statesmen  and  officials  in  closest  communication  with  court 
circles  were  in  almost  absolute  ignorance.  According  to 
Mr.  Greville,  whose  authority,  however,  is  not  to  be  taken 
too  implicitly  except  as  to  matters  which  he  actually  saw, 
the  young  Queen  had  been  previously  kept  in  such  seclu- 
sion by  her  mother — "never,"  he  says,  "having  slept  out 
of  her  bedroom,  nor  been  alone  with  an)'body  but  herself 
and  the  Baroness  Lehzen" — that  "not  one  of  her  acquaint- 
ance, none  of  the  attendants  at  Kensington,  not  even  the 
Duchess  of  Northumberland,  her  governess,  have  any  idea 
what  she  is  or  what  she  promises  to  be."  There  was 
enough  in  the  court  of  the  two  sovereigns  who  went  before 
Queen  Victoria  to  justify  any  strictness  of  seclusion  which 
the  Duchess  of  Kent  might  desire  for  her  daughter. 
George  IV.  was  a  Charles  II.  without  the  education  or  the 
talents;  William  IV.  was  a  Frederick  William  of  Prussia 
without  the  genius.  The  ordinary  manners  of  the  society 
at  the  court  of  either  had  a  full  flavor,  to  put  it  in  the  soft- 
est way,  such  as  a  decent  tap-room  would  hardly  exhibit 
in  a  time  like  the  present.  No  one  can  read  even  the 
most  favorable  descriptions  given  by  contemporaries  of 
the  manners  of  those  two  courts  without  feeling  grateful 
to  the  Duchess  of  Kent  for  resolving  that  her  daughter 
should  see  as  little  as  possible  of  their  ways  and  their 
company. 

It  was  remarked  with  some  interest  that  the  Queen  sub- 
scribed herself  simply  "Victoria,"  and  not,  as  had  been 
expected,  "  Alexandrina  Victoria."  Mr.  Greville  men- 
tions in  his  diary  of  December  24th,  1819,  that  "  the  Duke 
of  Kent  gave  the  name  of  Alexandrina  to  his  daughter  in 
compliment  to  the  Emperor  of  Russia.  She  was  to  have 
had  the  name  of  Georgiana,  but  the  Duke  insisted  upon 
Alexandrina  being  her  first  name.      The  Regent  sent  for 


10  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Lieven"  (the  Russian  ambassador,  husband  of  the  famous 
Princess  de  Lieven) ,  "  and  made  him  a  great  many  com- 
pliments, en  le  persiflant,  on  the  Emperor's  being  godfather, 
but  informed  him  that  the  name  of  Georgiana  could  be 
second  to  no  other  in  this  country,  and  therefore  she  could 
not  bear  it  at  all. "  It  was  a  very  wise  choice  to  employ 
simply  the  name  of  Victoria,  around  which  no  ungenial 
associations  of  any  kind  hung  at  that  time,  and  which  can 
have  only  grateful  associations  in  the  history  of  this  coun- 
try for  the  future. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  any  formal  description  of 
the  various  ceremonials  and  pageantries  which  celebrated 
the  accession  of  the  new  sovereign.  The  proclamation  of 
the  Queen,  her  appearance  for  the  first  time  on  the  throne 
in  the  House  of  Lords  when  she  prorogued  Parliament  in 
person,  and  even  the  gorgeous  festival  of  her  coronation, 
which  took  place  on  June  28th,  in  the  following  year, 
1838,  may  be  passed  over  with  a  mere  word  of  record. 
It  is  worth  mentioning,  however,  that  at  the  coronation 
procession  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  figures  was  that  of 
Marshal  Soult,  Duke  of  Dalmatia,  the  opponent  of  Moore 
and  Wellington  in  the  Peninsula,  the  commander  of  the 
Old  Guard  at  Liitzen,  and  one  of  the  strong  arms  of  Napo- 
leon at  Waterloo.  Soult  had  been  sent  as  ambassador- 
extraordinary  to  represent  the  French  Government  and 
people  at  the  coronation  of  Queen  Victoria,  and  nothing 
could  exceed  the  enthusiasm  with  which  he  was  received 
by  the  crowds  in  the  streets  of  London  on  that  day.  The 
white-haired  soldier  was  cheered  wherever  a  glimpse  of 
his  face  or  figure  could  be  caught.  He  appeared  in  the 
procession  in  a  carriage,  the  frame  of  which  had  been  used 
on  occasions  of  state  by  some  of  the  Princes  of  the  House 
of  Cond^,  and  which  Soult  had  had  splendidly  decorated 
for  the  ceremony  of  the  coronation.  Even  the  Austrian 
ambassador,  says  an  eye-witness,  attracted  less  attention 
than  Soult,  although  the  dress  of  the  Austrian  Prince 
Esterhazy,    "  down  to  his  very  bootheels,  sparkled  with 


The  King  is  Dead!  Long  Live  the  Queen!  ii 

diamonds. "  The  comparison  savors  now  of  the  ridiculous, 
but  is  remarkably  expressive  and  effective.  Prince  Ester- 
hazy's  name  in  those  days  suggested  nothing  but  dia- 
monds. His  diamonds  may  be  said  to  glitter  through 
all  the  light  literature  of  the  time.  When  Lady  Mary 
Wortley  Montagu  wanted  a  comparison  with  which  to 
illustrate  excessive  splendor  and  brightness,  she  found  it 
in  "Mr.  Pitt's  diamonds."  Prince  Esterhazy's  served  the 
same  purpose  for  the  writers  of  the  early  years  of  the 
present  reign.  It  was,  therefore,  perhaps,  no  very  poor 
tribute  to  the  stout  old  moustache  of  the  Republic  and  the 
Empire  to  say  that  at  a  London  pageant  his  war-worn  face 
drew  attention  away  from  Prince  Esterhazy's  diamonds. 
Soult  himself  felt  very  warmly  the  genuine  kindness  of 
the  reception  given  to  him.  Years  after,  in  a  debate  in 
the  French  Chamber,  when  M.  Guizot  was  accused  of  too 
much  partiality  for  the  English  alliance.  Marshal  Soult 
declared  himself  a  warm  champion  of  that  alliance.  "  I 
fought  the  English  down  to  Toulouse,"  he  said,  "when  I 
fired  the  last  cannon  in  defence  of  the  national  indepen- 
dence ;  in  the  mean  time  I  have  been  in  London,  and  France 
knows  the  reception  which  I  had  there.  The  English 
themselves  cried  'Vive  Soult!' — they  cried  'Soult  forever!' 
I  had  learned  to  estimate  the  English  on  the  field  of  bat- 
tle; I  have  learned  to  estimate  them  in  peace;  and  I 
repeat  that  I  am  a  warm  partisan  of  the  English  alliance." 
History  is  not  exclusively  made  by  cabinets  and  profes- 
sional diplomatists.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the  cheers 
of  a  London  crowd  on  the  day  of  the  Queen's  coronation 
did  something  genuine  and  substantial  to  restore  the  good 
feeling  between  this  country  and  France,  and  efface  the 
bitter  memories  of  Waterloo. 

It  is  a  fact  well  worthy  of  note,  amid  whatever  records 
of  court  ceremonial  and  of  political  change,  that  a  few 
days  after  the  accession  of  the  Queen,  Mr.  Montefiore  was 
elected  Sheriff  of  London,  the  first  Jew  who  had  ever 
been  chosen  for  that  office ;  and  that  he  received  knight- 


12  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

hood  at  the  hands  of  her  Majesty  when  she  visited  the  City 
on  the  following  Lord  Mayor's  day.  He  was  the  first  Jew 
whom  royalty  had  honored  in  this  country  since  the  good 
old  times  when  royalty  was  pleased  to  borrow  the  Jew's 
money,  or  order  instead  the  extraction  of  his  teeth.  The 
expansion  of  the  principle  of  religious  liberty  and  equality, 
which  has  been  one  of  the  most  remarkable  characteristics 
of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  could  hardly  have  been  more 
becomingly  inaugurated  than  by  the  compliment  which 
sovereign  and  city  paid  to  Sir  Moses  Montcfiore, 

The  first  signature  attached  to  the  Act  of  Allegiance 
presented  to  the  Queen  at  Kensington  Palace  was  that  of 
her  eldest  surviving  uncle,  Ernest,  Duke  of  Cumberland. 
The  fact  may  be  taken  as  an  excuse  for  introducing  a  few 
words  here  to  record  the  severance  that  then  took  place 
between  the  interests  of  this  country,  or  at  least  the  reign- 
ing family  of  these  realms,  and  another  State,  which  had 
for  a  long  time  been  bound  up  together  in  a  manner  sel- 
dom satisfactory  to  the  English  people.  In  the  whole 
history  of  England  it  will  be  observed  that  few  things 
have  provoked  greater  popular  dissatisfaction  than  the 
connection  of  a  reigning  family  with  the  crown  or  ruler- 
ship  of  some  foreign  State.  There  is  an  instinctive  jeal- 
ousy on  such  a  point,  which,  even  when  it  is  unreasonable, 
is  not  unnatural.  A  sovereign  of  England  had  better  be 
sovereign  of  England,  and  of  no  foreign  State.  Many 
favorable  auspices  attended  the  accession  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria to  the  throne;  some  at  least  of  these  were  associated 
with  her  sex.  The  country  was  in  general  disposed  to 
think  that  the  accession  of  a  woman  to  the  throne  would 
somewhat  clarify  and  purify  the  atmosphere  of  the  court. 
It  had  another  good  effect  as  well,  and  one  of  a  strictly 
political  nature.  It  severed  the  connection  which  had 
existed  for  some  generations  between  this  country  and 
Hanover.  The  connection  was  only  personal,  the  succes- 
sive kings  of  England  being  also  by  succession  sovereigns 
of  Hanover. 


The  King  is  Dead!  Long  Live  the  Queen!  13 

The  crown  of  Hanover  was  limited  in  its  descent  to  the 
male  line,  and  it  passed  on  the  death  of  William  IV.  to 
his  eldest  surviving  brother,  Ernest,  Duke  of  Cumberland. 
The  change  was  in  almost  every  way  satisfactory  to  the 
English  people.  The  indirect  connection  between  Eng- 
land and  Hanover  had  at  no  time  been  a  matter  of  gratifi- 
cation to  the  public  of  this  country.  Many  cooler  and 
more  enlightened  persons  than  honest  Squire  Western  had 
viewed  with  disfavor,  and  at  one  time  with  distrust,  the 
division  of  interests  which  the  ownership  of  the  two  crowns 
seemed  almost  of  necessity  to  create  in  our  English  sov- 
ereigns. Besides,  it  must  be  owned  that  the  people  of  this 
country  were  not  by  any  means  sorry  to  be  rid  of  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland.  Not  many  of  George  HI. 's  sons  were 
popular ;  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  was  probably  the  least 
popular  of  all.  He  was  believed  by  many  persons  to  have 
had  something  more  than  an  indirect,  or  passive,  or  inno- 
cent share  in  the  Orange  plot,  discovered  and  exposed  by 
Joseph  Hume  in  1835,  for  setting  aside  the  claims  of  the 
young  Princess  Victoria,  and  putting  himself,  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  on  the  throne ;  a  scheme  which  its  authors 
pretended  to  justify  by  the  preposterous  assertion  that  they 
feared  the  Duke  of  Wellington  would  otherwise  seize  the 
crown  for  himself.  His  manners  were  rude,  overbearing, 
and  sometimes  even  brutal.  He  had  personal  habits 
which  seemed  rather  fitted  for  the  days  of  Tiberius,  or  for 
the  court  of  Peter  the  Great,  than  for  the  time  and  sphere 
to  which  he  belonged.  Rumor  not  unnaturally  exagger- 
ated his  defects,  and  in  the  mouths  of  many  his  name  was 
the  symbol  of  the  darkest  and  fiercest  passions,  and  even 
crimes.  Some  of  the  popular  reports  with  regard  to  him 
had  their  foundation  only  in  the  common  detestation  of 
his  character  and  dread  of  his  influence ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  he  was  profligate,  selfish,  overbearing,  and  quarrel- 
some. A  man  with  these  qualities  would  usually  be  de- 
scribed in  fiction  as  at  all  events  bluntly  honest  and  out- 
spoken ;  but  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  was  deceitful  and 


14  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

treacherous.  He  was  outspoken  in  his  abuse  of  those  with 
whom  he  quarrelled,  and  in  his  style  of  anecdote  and 
jocular  conversation ;  but  in  no  other  sense.  The  Duke  of 
Wellington,  whom  he  hated,  told  Mr.  Greville  that  he 
once  asked  George  IV.  why  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  was 
so  unpopular,  and  the  King  replied,  "  Because  there  never 
was  a  father  well  with  his  son,  or  husband  with  his  wife, 
or  lover  with  his  mistress,  or  friend  with  his  friend,  that 
he  did  not  try  to  make  mischief  between  them. "  The  first 
thing  he  did  on  his  accession  to  the  throne  of  Hanover 
was  to  abrogate  the  constitution  which  had  been  agreed 
to  by  the  estates  of  the  kingdom,  and  sanctioned  by  the 
late  King,  William  IV.  "Radicalism,"  said  the  King, 
writing  to  an  English  nobleman,  "  has  been  here  all  the 
order  of  the  day,  and  all  the  lower  class  appointed  to  office 
were  more  or  less  imbued  with  these  laudable  principles. 
.  .  .  But  I  have  cut  the  wings  of  this  democracy." 
He  went,  indeed,  pretty  vigorously  to  work,  for  he  dis- 
missed from  their  offices  seven  of  the  most  distinguished 
professors  of  the  University  of  Gottingen,  because  they 
signed  a  protest  against  his  arbitrary  abrogation  of  the 
constitution.  Among  the  men  thus  pushed  from  their 
stools  were  Gervinus,  the  celebrated  historian  and  Shak- 
spearian  critic,  at  that  time  professor  of  history  and  liter- 
ature; Ewald,  the  Orientalist  and  theologian;  Jacob 
Grimm,  and  Frederick  Dahlmann,  professor  of  political 
science.  Gervinus,  Grimm,  and  Dahlmann  were  not 
merely  deprived  of  their  offices,  but  were  actually  sent 
into  exile.  The  exiles  were  accompanied  across  the  fron- 
tier by  an  immense  concourse  of  students,  who  gave  them 
a  triumphant  Geleit  in  true  student  fashion,  and  converted 
what  was  meant  for  degradation  and  punishment  into  a 
procession  of  honor.  The  offence  against  all  rational 
principles  of  civil  government  in  these  arbitrary  proceed- 
ings on  the  part  of  the  new  King  was  the  more  flagrant 
because  it  could  not  even  be  pretended  that  the  professors 
were  interfering  with  political  matters  outside  their  prov- 


The  King  is  Dead!  Long  Live  the  Queen!  15 

ince,  or  that  they  were  issuing  manifestoes  calculated  to 
disturb  the  public  peace.  The  University  of  Gottingen  at 
that  time  sent  a  representative  to  the  estates  of  the  king- 
dom, and  the  protest  to  which  the  seven  professors  attached 
their  names  was  addressed  to  the  academical  senate,  and 
simply  declared  that  they  would  take  no  part  in  the  ensuing 
election,  because  of  the  suspension  of  the  constitution.  All 
this  led  to  somewhat  serious  disturbances  in  Hanover,  which 
it  needed  the  employment  of  military  force  to  suppress. 

It  was  felt  in  England  that  the  mere  departure  of  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland  from  this  country  would  have  made 
the  severance  of  the  connection  with  Hanover  desirable, 
even  if  it  had  not  been  in  other  ways  an  advantage  to  us. 
Later  times  have  shown  how  much  we  have  gained  by  the 
separation.  It  would  have  been  exceedingly  inconven- 
ient, to  say  the  least,  if  the  crown  worn  by  a  sovereign  of 
England  had  been  hazarded  in  the  war  between  Austria 
and  Prussia  in  1866.  Our  reigning  family  must  have 
seemed  to  suffer  in  dignity  if  that  crown  had  been  roughly 
knocked  off  the  head  of  its  wearer,  who  happened  to  be  an 
English  sovereign ;  and  it  would  have  been  absurd  to  ex- 
pect that  the  English  people  could  engage  in  a  quarrel 
with  which  their  interests  and  honor  had  absolutely  noth- 
ing to  do  for  the  sake  of  a  mere  family  possession  of  their 
ruling  house.  Looking  back  from  this  distance  of  time,  and 
across  a  change  of  political  and  social  manners  far  greater 
than  the  distance  of  time  might  seem  to  explain,  it  appears 
difficult  to  understand  the  passionate  emotions  which  the 
accession  of  the  young  Queen  seems  to  have  excited  on  all 
sides.  Some  influential  and  prominent  politicians  talked 
and  wrote  as  if  there  were  really  a  possibility  of  the  To- 
ries attempting  a  revolution  in  favor  of  the  Hanoverian 
branch  of  the  royal  family ;  and  if  some  such  crisis  had 
again  come  round  as  that  which  tried  the  nation  when 
Queen  Anne  died.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  heard 
loud  and  shrill  cries  that  the  Queen  was  destined  to  be  con- 
ducted by  her  constitutional  advisers  into  a  precipitate  path- 


1 6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

way,  leading  sheer  down  into  popery  and  anarchy.  The 
Times  insisted  that  "  the  anticipations  of  certain  Irish 
Roman  Catholics  respecting  the  success  of  their  warfare 
against  Church  and  State  under  the  auspices  of  these  not 
untried  ministers,  into  whose  hands  the  all  but  infant  Queen 
has  been  compelled  by  her  unhappy  condition  to  deliver 
herself  and  her  indignant  people,  are  to  be  taken  for 
nothing,  and  as  nothing  but  the  chimeras  of  a  band  of 
visionary  traitors."  The  Times  even  thought  it  necessary 
to  point  out  that  for  her  Majesty  to  turn  papist,  to  marry 
a  papist,  "  or  in  any  manner  follow  the  footsteps  of  the 
Coburg  family,  whom  these  incendiaries  describe  as 
papists,"  would  involve  an  "immediate  forfeiture  of  the 
British  crown. "  On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  Radical 
and  more  especially  Irish  papers  talked  in  the  plainest 
terms  of  Tory  plots  to  depose,  or  even  to  assassinate,  the 
Queen,  and  put  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  in  her  place. 
O'Connell,  the  great  Irish  agitator,  declared  in  a  public 
speech  that  if  it  were  necessary  he  could  get  "  five  hun- 
dred thousand  brave  Irishmen  to  defend  the  life,  the  honor 
and  the  person  of  the  beloved  young  lady  by  whom  Eng- 
land's throne  is  now  filled."  Mr.  Henry  Grattan,  the  son 
of  the  famous  orator,  and  like  his  father  a  Protestant,  de- 
clared, at  a  meeting  in  Dublin,  that  "if  her  Majesty  were 
once  fairly  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Tories,  I  would  not 
give  an  orange-peel  for  her  life."  He  even  went  on  to 
put  his  rhetorical  declaration  into  a  more  distinct  form : 
"  If  some  of  the  low  miscreants  of  the  party  got  round  her 
Majesty,  and  had  the  mixing  of  the  royal  bowl  at  night,  I 
fear  she  would  have  a  long  sleep."  This  language  seems 
almost  too  absurd  for  sober  record,  and  yet  was  hardly 
more  absurd  than  many  things  said  on  what  may  be  called 
the  other  side.  A  Mr.  Bradshaw,  Tory  member  for  Can- 
terbury, declared  at  a  public  meeting  in  that  ancient  city 
that  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  Liberal  Ministry  was  the  body 
of  "  Irish  papists  and  rapparees  whom  the  priests  return 
to  the  House  of  Commons."     "These  are  the   men  who 


The  King  is  Dead!  Long  Live  the  Queen!  17 

represent  the  bigoted  savages,  hardly  more  civilized  than 
the  natives  of  New  Zealand,  but  animated  with  a  fierce, 
undying  hatred  of  England.  Yet  on  these  men  are  be- 
stowed the  countenance  and  support  of  the  Queen  of  Prot- 
estant England.  For,  alas!  her  Majesty  is  Queen  only 
of  a  faction,  and  is  as  much  of  a  partisan  as  the  Lord 
Chancellor  himself."  At  a  Conservative  dinner  in  Lanca- 
shire, a  speaker  denounced  the  Queen  and  her  ministers 
on  the  same  ground  so  vehemently  that  the  Commander- 
in-chief  addressed  a  remonstrance  to  some  military  officers 
who  were  among  the  guests  at  this  excited  banquet,  point- 
ing out  to  them  the  serious  responsibility  they  incurred  by 
remaining  in  any  assembly  when  such  language  was 
uttered  and  such  sentiments  were  expressed. 

No  one,  of  course,  would  take  impassioned  and  inflated 
harangues  of  this  kind  on  either  side  as  a  representation 
of  the  general  feeling.  Sober  persons  all  over  the  country 
must  have  known  perfectly  well  that  there  was  not  the 
slightest  fear  that  the  young  Queen  would  turn  a  Roman 
Catholic,  or  that  her  minister  intended  to  deliver  the  coun- 
try up  as  a  prey  to  Rome.  Sober  persons  everywhere,  too, 
must  have  known  equally  well  that  there  was  no  longer  the 
slightest  cause  to  feel  an  alarm  about  a  Tory  plot  to  hand 
over  the  throne  of  England  to  the  detested  Duke  of  Cum- 
berland. We  only  desire,  in  quoting  such  outrageous 
declarations,  to  make  more  clear  the  condition  of  the  pub- 
lic mind,  and  to  show  what  the  state  of  the  political  world 
must  have  been  when  such  extravagance  and  such  delu- 
sions were  possible.  We  have  done  this  partly  to  show 
what  were  the  trials  and  difficulties  under  which  her 
Majesty  came  to  the  throne,  and  partly  for  the  mere  pur- 
pose of  illustrating  the  condition  of  the  country  and  of 
political  education.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  all  over 
the  country  passion  and  ignorance  were  at  work  to  make 
the  task  of  constitutional  government  peculiarly  difficult. 
A  vast  number  of  the  followers  of  the  Tories  in  country 
places  really  believed  that  the  Liberals  were  determined 
Vol.  1.^2  ., _ 


1 8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

to  hurry  the  sovereign  into  some  policy  tending  to  the 
degradation  of  the  monarchy.  If  any  cool  and  enlightened 
reasoner  were  to  argue  with  them  on  this  point,  and  en- 
deavor to  convince  them  of  the  folly  of  ascribing  such  pur- 
poses to  a  number  of  English  statesmen  whose  interests, 
position,  and  honor  were  absolutely  bound  up  with  the 
success  and  the  glory  of  the  State,  the  indignant  and  un- 
reasoning Tories  would  be  able  to  cite  the  very  words  of  so 
great  and  so  sober-minded  a  statesman  as  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  who,  in  his  famous  speech  to  the  electors  of  Tam- 
worth,  promised  to  rescue  the  constitution  from  being 
made  the  "victim  of  false  friends,"  and  the  country  from 
being  "  trampled  under  the  hoof  of  a  ruthless  democracy." 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  sensible  person  were  to  try  to 
persuade  hot-headed  people  on  the  opposite  side  that  it 
was  absurd  to  suppose  the  Tories  really  meant  any  harm 
to  the  freedom  and  the  peace  of  the  country  and  the  secu- 
rity of  the  succession,  he  might  be  invited,  with  significant 
expression,  to  read  the  manifesto  issued  by  Lord  Durham 
to  the  electors  of  Sunderland,  in  which  that  eminent  states- 
man declared  that  "  in  all  circumstances,  at  all  hazards,  be 
the  personal  consequences  what  they  may,"  he  would  ever 
be  found  ready  when  called  upon  to  defend  the  principles 
on  which  the  constitution  of  the  country  was  then  settled 
We  know  now  very  well  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Lord 
Durham  were  using  the  language  of  innocent  metaphor. 
vSir  Robert  Peel  did  not  really  fear  much  the  hoof  of  the 
ruthless  democracy;  Lord  Durham  did  not  actually  expect 
to  be  called  upon  at  any  terrible  risk  to  himself  to  fight 
the  battle  of  freedom  on  English  soil.  But  when  those 
whose  minds  had  been  bewildered  and  whose  passions  had 
been  inflamed  by  the  language  of  the  Times  on  the  one 
side,  and  that  of  O'Connell  on  the  other,  came  to  read  the 
calmer  and  yet  sufficiently  impassioned  words  of  responsi- 
ble statesmen  like  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Lord  Durham,  they 
might  be  excused  if  they  found  rather  a  confirmation  than 
a  refutation  of  their  arguments  and  their  fears. 


The  King  is  Dead!  Long  Live  the  Queen!  19 

The  truth  is  that  the  country  was  in  a  very  excited  con- 
dition, and  that  it  is  easy  to  imagine  a  succession  of  events 
which  might  in  a  moment  have  thrown  it  into  utter  con- 
fusion. At  home  and  abroad  things  were  looking  ominous 
for  the  new  reign.  To  begin  with,  the  last  two  reigns 
had,  on  the  whole,  done  much  to  loosen,  not  only  the  per- 
sonal feeling  of  allegiance,  but  even  the  general  confidence 
in  the  virtue  of  monarchical  rule.  The  old  plan  of  per- 
sonal government  had  become  an  anomaly,  and  the  system 
of  a  genuine  constitutional  government,  such  as  we  know, 
had  not  yet  been  tried.  The  very  manner  in  which  the 
Reform  Bill  had  been  carried,  the  political  stratagem 
which  had  been  resorted  to  when  further  resistance  seemed 
dangerous,  was  not  likely  to  exalt  in  popular  estimate  the 
value  of  what  was  then  gracefully  called  constitutional 
government.  Only  a  short  time  before,  the  country  had 
seen  Catholic  emancipation  conceded,  not  from  a  sense  of 
justice  on  the  part  of  ministers,  but  avowedly  because 
further  resistance  must  lead  to  civil  disturbance.  There 
was  not  much  in  all  this  to  impress  an  intelligent  and  in- 
dependent people  with  a  sense  of  the  great  wisdom  of  the 
rulers  of  the  country,  or  of  the  indispensable  advantages 
of  the  system  which  they  represented.  Social  discontent 
prevailed  almost  everywhere.  Economic  laws  were  hardly 
understood  by  the  country  in  general.  Class  interests 
were  fiercely  arrayed  against  each  other.  The  cause  of 
each  man's  class  filled  him  with  a  positive  fanaticism. 
He  was  not  a  mere  selfish  and  grasping  partisan,  but  he 
sincerely  believed  that  each  other  class  was  arrayed  against 
his,  and  that  the  natural  duty  of  self-defence  and  self- 
preservation  compelled  him  to  stand  firmly  by  his  own. 


CHAPTER  II. 

STATESMEN    AND    PARTIES. 

Lord  Melbourne  was  the  First  Minister  of  the  Crown 
when  the  Queen  succeeded  to  the  throne.  He  was  a  man 
who  then  and  always  after  made  himself  particularly  dear 
to  the  Queen,  and  for  whom  she  had  the  strongest  regard. 
He  was  of  kindly,  somewhat  indolent  nature;  fair  and 
even  generous  toward  his  political  opponents ;  of  the  most 
genial  disposition  toward  his  friends.  He  was  emphati- 
cally not  a  strong  man.  He  was  not  a  man  to  make  good 
grow  where  it  was  not  already  grown,  to  adopt  the  ex- 
pression of  a  great  author.  Long  before  that  time  his 
eccentric  wife.  Lady  Caroline  Lamb,  had  excused  herself 
for  some  of  her  follies  and  frailties  by  pleading  that  her 
husband  was  not  a  man  to  watch  over  any  one's  morals. 
He  was  a  kindly  counsellor  to  a  young  Queen ;  and,  hap- 
pily for  herself,  the  young  Queen  in  this  case  had  strong, 
clear  sense  enough  of  her  own  not  to  be  absolutely  depend- 
ent on  any  counsel.  Lord  Melbourne  was  not  a  statesman. 
His  best  qualities,  personal  kindness  and  good-nature 
apart,  were  purely  negative.  He  was  unfortunately  not 
content  even  with  the  reputation  for  a  sort  of  indolent 
good-nature  which  he  might  have  well  deserved :  he  strove 
to  make  himself  appear  hopelessly  idle,  trivial,  and  care- 
less. When  he  really  was  serious  and  earnest,  he  seemed 
to  make  it  his  business  to  look  like  one  in  whom  no  human 
affairs  could  call  up  a  gleam  of  interest.  He  became  the 
fanfaron  of  levities  which  he  never  had.  We  have  amus- 
ing pictures  of  him  as  he  occupied  himself  in  blowing  a 
feather  or  nursing  a  sofa-cushion  while  receiving  an  impor- 
tant and  perhaps  highly  sensitive  deputation  from  this  or 


statesmen  and  Parties.  i\ 

that  commercial  "  interest. "  Those  who  knew  him  insisted 
that  he  really  was  listening  with  all  his  might  and  main; 
that  he  had  sat  up  the  whole  night  before  studying  the  ques- 
tion which  he  seemed  to  think  so  unworthy  of  any  attention ; 
and  that,  so  far  from  being,  like  Horace,  wholly  absorbed 
in  his  trifles,  he  was  at  very  great  pains  to  keep  up  the 
appearance  of  a  trifler.  A  brilliant  critic  has  made  a 
lively  and  amusing  attack  on  this  alleged  peculiarity.  "  If 
the  truth  must  be  told,"  says  Sydney  Smith,  "  our  viscount 
is  somewhat  of  an  impostor.  Everything  about  him  seems 
to  betoken  careless  desolation ;  any  one  would  suppose 
from  his  manner  that  he  was  playing  at  chuck-farthing 
with  human  happiness;  that  he  was  always  on  the  wheel  of 
pastime ;  that  he  would  giggle  away  the  Great  Charter,  and 
decide  by  the  method  of  teetotum  whether  my  lords  the 
bishops  should  or  should  not  retain  their  seats  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  All  this  is  but  the  mere  vanity  of  sur- 
prising, and  making  us  believe  that  he  can  play  with  king- 
doms as  other  men  can  with  ninepins.  ...  I  am  sorry 
to  hurt  any  man's  feelings,  and  to  brush  away  the  magnifi- 
cent fabric  of  levity  and  gayety  he  has  reared;  but  I 
accuse  our  minister  of  honesty  and  diligence ;  I  deny  that 
he  is  careless  or  rash:  he  is  nothing  more  than  a  man  of 
good  imderstanding  and  good  principle  disguised  in  the 
eternal  and  somewhat  wearisome  affectation  of  a  political 
roue. " 

Such  a  masquerading  might  perhaps  have  been  excus- 
able, or  even  attractive,  in  the  case  of  a  man  of  really  brill- 
iant and  commanding  talents.  Lookers-on  are  always 
rather  apt  to  be  fascinated  b}^  the  spectacle  of  a  man  of 
well-recognized  strength  and  force  of  character  playing  for 
the  moment  the  part  of  an  indolent  trifler.  The  contrast 
is  charming  in  a  brilliant  Prince  Hal  or  such  a  Sardana- 
palus  as  Byron  drew.  In  our  own  time  a  considerable 
amount  of  the  popularity  of  Lord  Palmerston  was  inspired 
by  the  amusing  antagonism  between  his  assumed  levity 
and  his  well-known  force  of  intellect  and  strength  of  will. 


22  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

But  in  Lord  Melbourne's  case  the  affectation  had  no  such 
excuse  or  happy  effect.  He  was  not  by  any  means  a 
Palmerston.  He  was  only  fitted  to  rule  in  the  quietest 
times.  He  was  a  poor  speaker,  utterly  unable  to  encoun- 
ter the  keen,  penetrating  criticisms  of  Lyndhurst  or  the 
vehement  and  remorseless  invectives  of  Brougham.  De- 
bates were  then  conducted  with  a  bitterness  of  personality 
unknown,  or  at  all  events  very  rarely  known,  in  our  days. 
Even  in  the  House  of  Lords  language  was  often  inter- 
changed of  the  most  virulent  hostility.  The  rushing  im- 
petuosity and  fury  of  Brougham's  style  had  done  much 
then  to  inflame  the  atmosphere  which  in  our  days  is  usu- 
ally so  cool  and  moderate. 

It  probably  added  to  the  warmth  of  the  attacks  on  the 
ministry  of  Lord  Melbourne  that  the  Prime-minister  was 
supposed  to  be  an  especial  favorite  with  the  young  Queen, 
When  Victoria  came  to  the  throne  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
gave  frank  expression  to  his  feelings  as  to  the  future  of 
his  party.  He  was  of  opinion  that  the  Tories  would  never 
have  any  chance  with  a  young  woman  for  sovereign.  "  I 
have  no  small-talk,"  he  said,  "  and  Peel  has  no  manners." 
It  had  probably  not  occurred  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington  to 
think  that  a  woman  could  be  capable  of  as  sound  a  con- 
stitutional policy,  and  could  show  as  little  regard  for  per- 
sonal predilections  in  the  business  of  government,  as  any 
man.  All  this,  however,  only  tended  to  embitter  the 
feeling  against  the  Whig  government.  Lord  Melbourne's 
constant  attendance  on  the  young  Queen  was  regarded 
with  keen  jealousy  and  dissatisfaction.  According  to  some 
critics,  the  Prime-minister  was  endeavoring  to  inspire  her 
with  all  his  own  gay  heedlessness  of  character  and  tem- 
perament. According  to  others.  Lord  Melbourne's  pur- 
pose was  to  make  himself  agreeable  and  indispensable  to 
the  Queen ;  to  surround  her  with  his  friends,  relations,  and 
creatures,  and  thus  get  a  lifelong  hold  of  power  in  Eng- 
land, in  defiance  of  political  changes  and  parties.  It  is 
curious  now  to  look  back  on  much  that  was  said  in  the 


statesmen  and  Parties.  23 

political  and  personal  heats  and  bitternesses  of  the  time.  If 
Lord  Melbourne  had  been  a  French  mayor  of  the  palace, 
whose  real  object  was  to  make  himself  virtual  ruler  of  the 
State,  and  to  hold  the  sovereign  as  a  puppet  in  his  hands, 
there  could  not  have  been  greater  anger,  fear,  and  jeal- 
ousy. Since  that  time  we  have  all  learned  on  the  very 
best  authority  that  Lord  Melbourne  actually  was  himself 
the  person  to  advise  the  Queen  to  show  some  confidence 
in  the  Tories — to  "hold  out  the  olive-branch  a  little  to 
them,"  as  he  expressed  it.  He  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  greedy  of  power,  or  to  have  used  any  unfair  means 
of  getting  or  keeping  it.  The  character  of  the  young 
sovereign  seems  to  have  impressed  him  deeply.  His  real 
or  affected  levity  gave  way  to  a  genuine  and  lasting  desire 
to  make  her  life  as  happy,  and  her  reign  as  successful,  aS 
he  could.  The  Queen  always  felt  the  warmest  affection 
and  gratitude  for  him,  and  showed  it  long  after  the  public 
had  given  up  the  suspicion  that  she  could  be  a  puppet  in 
the  hands  of  a  minister. 

Still,  it  is  certain  that  the  Queen's  Prime-minister  was 
by  no  means  a  popular  man  at  the  time  of  her  accession. 
Even  observers  who  had  no  political  or  personal  interest 
whatever  in  the  conditions  of  cabinets  were  displeased  to 
see  the  opening  of  the  new  reign  so  much,  to  all  appear- 
ance, under  the  influence  of  one  who  either  was  or  tried  to 
be  a  mere  lounger.  The  deputations  went  away  offended 
and  disgusted  when  Lord  Melbourne  played  with  feathers  or 
dandled  sofa-cushions  in  their  presence.  The  almost  fierce 
energy  and  strenuousness  of  a  man  like  Brougham  showed 
in  overwhelming  contrast  to  the  happy-go-lucky  airs  and 
graces  of  the  Premier.  It  is  likely  that  there  was  quite 
as  much  of  affectation  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other ;  but 
the  affectation  of  a  devouring  zeal  for  the  public  service  told 
at  least  far  better  than  the  other  in  the  heat  and  stress  of 
debate.  When  the  new  reign  began,  the  ministry  had 
two  enemies  or  critics  in  the  House  of  Lords  of  the  most 
formidable  character.     Either  alone  would  have  been  a 


24  A  History  of  Out  Own  Times. 

trouble  to  a  minister  of  far  stronger  mould  than  Lord 
Melbourne ;  but  circumstances  threw  them  both,  for  the 
moment,  into  a  chance  alliance  against  him. 

One  of  these  was  Lord  Brougham.  No  stronger  and 
stranger  a  figure  than  his  is  described  in  the  modern  history 
of  England.  He  was  gifted  with  the  most  varied  and 
striking  talents,  and  with  a  capacity  for  labor  which  some- 
times seemed  almost  superhuman.  Not  merely  had  he  the 
capacity  for  labor,  but  he  appeared  to  have  a  positive 
passion  for  work.  His  restless  energy  seemed  as  if  it 
must  stretch  itself  out  on  every  side  seeking  new  fields  of 
conquest.  The  study  that  was  enough  to  occupy  the  whole 
time  and  wear  out  the  frame  of  other  men  was  only  rec- 
reation to  him.  He  might  have  been  described  as  one 
possessed  by  a  very  demon  of  work.  His  physical  strength 
never  gave  way.  His  high  spirits  never  deserted  him. 
His  self-confidence  was  boundless.  He  thought  he  knew 
everything,  and  could  do  everything  better  tlian  any  other 
man.  He  delighted  in  giving  evidence  that  he  understood 
the  business  of  the  specialist  better  than  the  specialist  him- 
self. His  vanity  was  overweening,  and  made  him  ridicu- 
lous almost  as  often  and  as  much  as  his  genius  made  him 
admired.  The  comic  literature  of  more  than  a  generation 
had  no  subject  more  fruitful  than  the  vanity  and  restless- 
ness of  Lord  Brougham.  He  was  beyond  doubt  a  great 
Parliamentary  orator.  His  style  was  too  diffuse  and 
sometimes  too  uncouth  to  suit  a  day  like  our  own,  when 
form  counts  for  more  than  substance,  when  passion  seems 
out  of  place  in  debate,  and  not  to  exaggerate  is  far  more 
the  object  than  to  try  to  be  great.  Brougham's  action  was 
wild,  and  sometimes  even  furious;  his  gestures  were  sin- 
gularly ungraceful ;  his  manners  were  grotesque ;  but  of  his 
power  over  his  hearers  there  could  be  no  doubt.  That 
power  remained  with  him  until  a  far  later  date;  and  long 
after  the  years  when  men  usually  continue  to  take  part  in 
political  debate.  Lord  Brougham  could  be  impassioned, 
impressive,  and  even  overwhelming.     He  was  not  an  ora- 


Statesmen  and  Parties.  25 

tor  of  the  highest  class :  his  speeches  have  not  stood  the 
test  of  time.  Apart  from  the  circumstances  of  the  hour 
and  the  personal  power  of  the  speaker,  they  could  hardly 
arouse  any  great  delight,  or  even  interest ;  for  they  are  by 
no  means  models  of  English  style,  and  they  have  little  of 
that  profound  philosophical  interest,  that  pregnancy  of 
thought  and  meaning,  and  that  splendor  of  eloquence, 
which  make  the  speeches  of  Burke  always  classic,  and  even 
in  a  certain  sense  always  popular  among  us.  In  truth,  no 
man  could  have  done  with  abiding  success  all  the  things 
which  Brougham  did  successfully  for  the  hour.  On  law, 
on  politics,  on  literature,  on  languages,  on  science,  on  art, 
on  industrial  and  commercial  enterprise,  he  professed  to 
pronounce  with  the  authority  of  a  teacher.  "  If  Brougham 
knew  a  little  of  law,"  said  O'Connell,  when  the  former 
became  Lord  Chancellor,  "  he  would  know  a  little  of  every- 
thing."  The  anecdote  is  told  in  another  way  too,  which 
perhaps  makes  it  even  more  piquant.  "  The  new  Lord 
Chancellor  knows  a  little  of  everything  in  the  world — even 
of  law." 

Brougham's  was  an  excitable  and  self-asserting  nature. 
He  had  during  many  years  shown  himself  an  embodied 
influence,  a  living,  speaking  force  in  the  promotion  of  great 
political  and  social  reforms.  If  his  talents  were  great,  if 
his  personal  vanity  was  immense,  let  it  be  said  that  his 
services  to  the  cause  of  human  freedom  and  education 
were  simply  inestimable.  As  an  opponent  of  slavery  in 
the  colonies,  as  an  advocate  of  political  reform  at  home, 
of  law  reform,  of  popular  education,  of  religious  equality, 
he  had  worked  with  indomitable  zeal,  with  resistless  pas- 
sion, and  with  splendid  success.  But  his  career  passed 
through  two  remarkable  changes  which,  to  a  great  extent, 
interfered  with  the  full  efficacy  of  his  extraordinary  pow- 
ers. The  first  was  when  from  popular  tribune  and 
reformer  he  became  Lord  Chancellor  in  1830;  the  second 
was  when  he  was  left  out  of  office  on  the  reconstruction  of 
the  Whig  Ministry  in  April,  1835,  ^^^  he  passed- for  the 


26  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

remainder  of  his  life  into  the  position  of  an  independent 
or  unattached  critic  of  the  measures  and  policy  of  other 
men.  It  has  never  been  clearly  known  why  the  Whigs 
so  suddenly  threw  over  Brougham.  The  common  belief 
is  that  his  eccentricities  and  his  almost  savage  temper 
made  him  intolerable  in  a  cabinet.  It  has  been  darkly 
hinted  that  for  a  while  his  intellect  was  actually  under  a 
cloud,  as  people  said  that  of  Chatham  was  during  a  momen- 
tous season. 

Lord  Brougham  was  not  a  man  likely  to  forget  or  for- 
give the  wrong  which  he  must  have  believed  that  he  had 
sustained  at  the  hands  of  the  Whigs.  He  became  the 
fiercest  and  most  formidable  of  Lord  Melbourne's  hostile 
critics. 

The  other  opponent  who  has  been  spoken  of  was  Lord 
Lyndhurst.  Lord  Lyndhurst  resembled  Lord  Brougham 
in  the  length  of  his  career  and  in  capacity  for  work,  if  in 
nothing  else.  Lyndhurst,  who  was  born  in  Boston  the 
year  before  the  tea-ships  were  boarded  in  that  harbor  and 
their  cargoes  flung  into  the  water,  has  been  heard  address- 
ing the  House  of  Lords  in  all  vigor  and  fluency  by  men 
who  are  yet  far  from  middle  age.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
effective  Parliamentar}''  debaters  of  a  time  which  has 
known  such  men  as  Peel  and  Palmerston,  Gladstone  and 
Disraeli,  Bright  and  Cobden.  His  style  was  singularly 
and  even  severely  clear,  direct,  and  pure ;  his  manner  was 
easy  and  graceful ;  his  voice  remarkably  sweet  and  strong. 
Nothing  could  have  been  in  greater  contrast  than  his  clear, 
correct,  nervous  argument,  and  the  impassioned  invectives 
and  overwhelming  strength  of  Brougham.  L5mdhurst 
had,  as  has  been  said,  an  immense  capacity  for  work,  when 
the  work  had  to  be  done ;  but  his  natural  tendency  was  as 
distinctly  toward  indolence  as  Brougham's  was  toward 
unresting  activity.  Nor  were  Lyndhurst's  political  con- 
victions ever  very  clear.  By  the  habitude  of  associating 
with  the  Tories,  and  receiving  office  from  them,  and  speak- 
ing for  them,  and  attacking  their  enemies  with  argument 


statesmen  and  Parties.  27 

and  sarcasm,  Lyndhtirst  finally  settled  down  into  all  the 
ways  of  Toryism.  But  nothing  in  his  varied  history 
showed  that  he  had  any  particular  preference  that  way; 
and  there  were  many  passages  in  his  career  when  it  would 
seem  as  if  a  turn  of  chance  decided  what  path  of  political 
life  he  was  to  follow.  As  a  keen  debater  he  was,  perhaps, 
hardly  ever  excelled  in  Parliament ;  but  he  had  neither  the 
passion  nor  the  genius  of  the  orator ;  and  his  capacity  was 
narrow  indeed  in  its  range  when  compared  with  the  aston- 
ishing versatility  and  omnivorous  mental  activity  of 
Brougham.  As  a  speaker  he  was  always  equal.  He 
seemed  to  know  no  varying  moods  or  fits  of  mental  lassi- 
tude. Whenever  he  spoke,  he  reached  at  once  the  same 
high  level  as  a  debater.  The  very  fact  may  in  itself,  per- 
haps, be  taken  as  conclusive  evidence  that  he  was  not  an 
orator.  The  higher  qualities  of  the  orator  are  no  more  to 
be  summoned  at  will  than  those  of  the  poet. 

These  two  men  were,  without  any  comparison,  the  two 
leading  debaters  in  the  House  of  Lords.  Lord  Melbourne 
had  not  at  that  time  in  the  Upper  House  a  single  man  of 
first-class  or  even  of  second-class  debating  power  on  the 
bench  of  the  ministry.  An  able  writer  has  well  remarked 
that  the  position  of  the  ministry  in  the  House  of  Lords 
might  be  compared  to  that  of  a  water-logged  wreck  into 
which  enemies  from  all  quarters  are  pouring  their  broad- 
Bides. 

The  accession  of  the  Queen  made  it  necessary  that  a 
new  Parliament  should  be  summoned.  The  struggle  be- 
tween parties  among  the  constituencies  was  very  animated, 
and  was  carried  on  in  some  instances  with  a  recourse  to 
manoeuvre  and  stratagem  such  as  in  our  time  would  hardly 
be  possible.  The  result  was  not  a  very  marked  alteration 
in  the  condition  of  parties;  but,  on  the  whole,  the  advan- 
tage remained  with  the  Tories.  Somewhere  about  this 
time,  it  may  be  remarked,  the  use  of  the  word  "  Conserv- 
ative," to  describe  the  latter  political  party,  first  came  into 
fashion.     Mr.    Wilson  Croker  is  credited  with  the  honor 


28  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

of  having  first  employed  the  word  in  that  sense.  In  an 
article  in  the  Quarterly  Review  some  years  before,  he  spoke 
of  being  decidedly  and  conscientiously  attached  "  to  what 
is  called  the  Tory,  but  which  might  with  more  propriety 
be  called  the  Conservative,  party."  During  the  elections 
for  the  new  Parliament,  Lord  John  Russell,  speaking  at  a 
public  dinner  at  Stroud,  made  allusion  to  the  new  name 
which  his  opponents  were  beginning  to  affect  for  their 
party.  "  If  that,"  he  said,  "  is  the  name  that  pleases  them, 
if  they  say  that  the  old  distinction  of  Whig  and  Tory  should 
no  longer  be  kept  up,  I  am  ready,  in  opposition  to  their 
name  of  Conservative,  to  take  the  name  of  Reformer,  and 
to  stand  by  that  opposition." 

The  Tories,  or  Conservatives  then,  had  a  slight  gain  as 
the  result  of  the  appeal  to  the  country.  The  new  Parlia- 
ment, on  its  assembling,  seems  to  have  gathered  in  the 
Commons  an  unusually  large  number  of  gifted  and  pronT- 
ising  men.  There  was  something,  too,  of  a  literary  stamp 
about  it,  a  fact  not  much  to  be  observed  in  Parliaments  of 
a  date  nearer  to  the  present  time.  Mr.  Grote,  the  histo- 
rian of  Greece,  sat  for  the  city  of  London.  The  late  Lord 
Lytton,  then  Mr.  Edward  Lytton  Bulwer,  had  a  seat — an 
advanced  Radical  at  that  day.  Mr.  Disraeli  came  then 
into  Parliament  for  the  first  time,  Charles  Buller,  full  of 
high  spirits,  brilliant  humor,  and  the  very  inspiration  of 
keen  good-sense,  seemed  on  the  sure  way  to  that  career  of 
renown  which  a  premature  death  cut  short.  Sir  William 
Molesworth  was  an  excellent  type  of  the  school  which  in 
later  days  was  called  the  Philosophical  Radical.  Another 
distinguished  member  of  the  same  school,  Mr.  Roebuck, 
had  lost  his  seat,  and  was  for  the  moment  an  outsider.  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  been  already  five  years  in  Parliament.  The 
late  Lord  Carlisle,  then  Lord  Morpeth,  was  looked  upon  as  a 
graceful  specimen  of  the  literary  and  artistic  young  noble- 
man, who  also  cultivates  a  little  politics  for  his  intellectual 
amusement.  Lord  John  Russell  had  but  lately  begun  his 
career  as  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons;  Lord  Palmer- 


Statesmen  and  Parties.  29 

ston  was  Foreign  Secretary,  but  had  not  even  then  got 
the  credit  of  the  great  ability  which  he  possessed.  Not 
many  years  before  Mr.  Greville  spoke  of  him  as  a  man  who 
"had  been  twenty  years  in  office,  and  had  never  distin- 
guished himself  before."  Mr.  Greville  expresses  a  mild 
surprise  at  the  high  opinion  which  persons  who  knew  Lord 
Palmerston  intimately  were  pleased  to  entertain  as  to  his 
ability  and  his  capacity  for  work.  Only  those  who  knew 
him  very  intimately  indeed  had  any  idea  of  the  capacity 
for  governing  Parliament  and  the  country  which  he  was 
soon  afterward  to  display.  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  leader  of 
the  Conservative  party.  Lord  Stanley,  the  late  Lord 
Derby,  was  still  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  had  not 
long  before  broken  definitively  with  the  Whigs  on  the 
question  of  the  Irish  ecclesiastical  establishment,  and  had 
passed  over  to  that  Conservative  party,  of  which  he  after- 
ward became  the  most  influential  leader  and  the  most 
powerful  Parliamentary  orator.  O'Connell  and  Shiel  rep- 
resented the  eloquence  of  the  Irish  national  party.  De- 
cidedly the  House  of  Commons  first  elected  during  Queen 
Victoria's  reign  was  strong  in  eloquence  and  talent. 
Only  two  really  great  speakers  have  arisen,  in  the  forty 
years  that  followed,  who  were  not  members  of  Parliament 
at  that  time — Mr.  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright.  Mr.  Cobden 
had  come  forward  as  a  candidate  for  the  borough  of  Stock- 
port, but  was  not  successful,  and  did  not  obtain  a  seat  in 
Parliament  until  four  years  after.  It  was  only  by  what 
may  be  called  an  accident  that  Macaulay  and  Mr.  Roe- 
buck were  not  in  the  Parliament  of  1837.  It  is  fair  to 
say,  therefore,  that,  except  for  Cobden  and  Bright,  the 
subsequent  forty  years  had  added  no  first-class  name  to  the 
records  of  Parliamentary  eloquence. 

The  ministry  was  not  very  strong  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Its  conditions,  indeed,  hardly  allowed  it  to  feel 
itself  strong  even  if  it  had  had  more  powerful  representa- 
tives in  either  House.  Its  adherents  were  but  loosely  held 
together.     The  more  ardent  reformers  were  disappointed 


50  .      A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

with  ministers;  the  Free-trade  movement  was  rising  into 
distinct  bulk  and  proportions,  and  threatened  to  be  for- 
midably independent  of  mere  party  ties.  The  Government 
had  to  rely  a  good  deal  on  the  precarious  support  of  Mr. 
O'Connell  and  his  followers.  They  were  not  rich  in 
debating  talent  in  the  Commons  any  more  than  in  the 
Lords.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  leader  of  the  Opposition, 
was  by  far  the  most  powerful  man  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Added  to  his  great  qualities  as  an  administrator 
and  a  Parliamentary  debater,  he  had  the  virtue,  then  very 
rare  among  Conservative  statesmen,  of  being  a  sound  and 
clear  financier,  with  a  good  grasp  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  political  economy.  His  high  austere  char- 
acter made  him  respected  by  opponents  as  well  as  by 
friends.  He  had  not,  perhaps,  many  intimate  friends. 
His  temperament  was  cold,  or  at  least  its  heat  was  self- 
contained  ;  he  threw  out  no  genial  glow  to  those  around 
him.  He  was  by  nature  a  reserved  and  shy  man,  in  whose 
manners  shyness  took  the  form  of  pompousness  and  cold- 
ness. Something  might  be  said  of  him  like  that  which 
Richter  said  of  Schiller:  he  was  to  strangers  stony,  and 
like  a  precipice  from  which  it  was  their  instinct  to  spring 
back.  It  is  certain  that  he  had  warm  and  generous  feel- 
ings, but  his  very  sensitiveness  only  led  him  to  disguise 
them.  The  contrast  between  his  emotions  and  his  lack 
of  demonstrativeness  created  in  him  a  constant  artificiality 
which  often  seemed  mere  awkwardness.  It  was  in  the 
House  of  Commons  that  his  real  genius  and  character 
displayed  themselves.  The  atmosphere  of  debate  was  to 
him  what  Macaulay  says  wine  was  to  Addison,  the  influ- 
ence which  broke  the  spell  under  which  his  fine  intellect 
seemed  otherwise  to  lie  imprisoned.  Peel  was  a  perfect 
master  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  as  great  an 
orator  as  any  man  could  be  who  addresses  himself  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  its  ways  and  its  purposes  alone.  He 
went  as  near,  perhaps,  to  the  rank  of  a  great  orator  as  any 
one  can  go  who  is    but  little  gifted  with  imagination. 


statesmen  and  Parties.  31 

Oratory  has  been  well  described  as  the  fusion  of  reason  and 
passion.  Passion  always  carries  something  of  the  imagi- 
native along  with  it.  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  little  imagina- 
tion, and  almost  none  of  that  passion  which  in  eloquence 
sometimes  supplies  its  place.  His  style  was  clear,  strong, 
and  stately;  full  of  various  argument  and  apt  illustration 
drawn  from  books  and  from  the  world  of  politics  and 
commerce.  He  followed  a  difficult  argument  home  to  its 
utter  conclusions ;  and  if  it  had  in  it  any  lurking  fallacy 
he  brought  out  the  weakness  into  the  clearest  light,  often 
with  a  happy  touch  of  humor  and  quiet  sarcasm.  His 
speeches  might  be  described  as  the  very  perfection  of  good- 
sense  and  high  principle  clothed  in  the  most  impressive 
language.  But  they  were  something  more  peculiar  than 
this,  for  they  were  so  constructed,  in  their  argument  and 
their  style  alike,  as  to  touch  the  very  core  of  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  House  of  Commons.  They  told  of  the  feel- 
ings and  the  inspiration  of  Parliament  as  the  ballad-music 
of  a  country  tells  of  its  scenery  and  its  national  sentiments. 
Lord  Stanley  was  a  far  more  energetic  and  impassioned 
speaker  than  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  perhaps  occasionally, 
in  his  later  career,  came  now  and  then  nearer  to  the  height 
of  genuine  oratory.  But  Lord  Stanley  was  little  more 
than  a  splendid  Parliamentary  partisan,  even  when,  long 
after,  he  was  Prime-minister  of  England.  He  had  very 
little,  indeed,  of  that  class  of  information  which  the  mod- 
ern world  requires  of  its  statesmen  and  leaders.  Of 
political  economy,  of  finance,  of  the  development  and  the 
discoveries  of  modern  science,  he  knew  almost  as  little  as 
it  is  possible  for  an  able  and  energetic  man  to  know  who 
lives  in  the  throng  of  active  life  and  hears  what  people  are 
talking  of  around  him.  He  once  said  good-humoredly  of 
himself,  that  he  was  brought  up  in  the  pre-scientific  period. 
His  scholarship  was  merely  such  training  in  the  classic 
languages  as  allowed  him  to  have  a  full  literary  apprecia- 
tion of  the  beauty  of  Greek  and  Roman  literature.  He 
had  no  real  and  deep  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  Greek 


32  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

and  the  Roman  people,  nor  probably  did  he  at  all  appre- 
ciate the  great  difference  between  the  spirit  of  Roman  and 
of  Greek  civilization.  He  had,  in  fact,  what  would  have 
been  called  at  an  earlier  day  an  elegant  scholarship;  he 
had  a  considerable  knowledge  of  the  politics  of  his  time  in 
most  European  countries,  an  energetic,  intrepid  spirit,  and 
with  him,  as  Macaulay  well  said,  the  science  of  Parlia- 
mentary debate  seemed  to  be  an  instinct.  There  was  no 
speaker  on  the  ministerial  benches  at  that  time  who  could 
for  a  moment  be  compared  with  him. 

Lord  John  Russell,  who  had  the  leadership  of  the  party 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  was  really  a  much  stronger 
man  than  he  seemed  to  be.  He  had  a  character  for  daunt- 
less courage  and  confidence  among  his  friends;  for  bound- 
less self-conceit  among  his  enemies.  Every  one  remem- 
bers Sydney  Smith's  famous  illustrations  of  Lord  John 
Russell's  unlimited  faith  in  his  own  power  of  achievement. 
Thomas  Moore  addressed  a  poem  to  him  at  one  time,  when 
Lord  John  Russell  thought  or  talked  of  giving  up  political 
life,  in  which  he  appeals  to  "thy  genius,  thy  youth,  and 
thy  name,"  declares  that  the  instinct  of  the  young  states- 
man is  the  same  as  "  the  eaglet's  to  soar  with  his  eyes  on 
the  sun,"  and  implores  him  not  to  "think  for  an  instant 
thy  country  can  spare  such  a  light  from  her  darkening 
horizon  as  thou."  Later  observers,  to  whom  Lord  John 
Russell  appeared  probably  remarkable  for  a  cold  and  formal 
style  as  a  debater,  and  for  lack  of  originating  power  as  a 
statesman,  may  find  it  difficult  to  reconcile  the  poet's  pic- 
ture with  their  own  impressions  of  the  reality.  But  it  is 
certain  that  at  one  time  the  reputation  of  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell was  that  of  a  rather  reckless  man  of  genius,  a  sort  of 
Whig  Shelley.  He  had,  in  truth,  much  less  genius  than  his 
friends  and  admirers  believed,  and  a  great  deal  more  of 
practical  strength  than  either  friends  or  foes  gave  him 
credit  for.  He  became,  not  indeed  an  orator,  but  a  very 
keen  debater,  who  was  especially  effective  in  a  cold,  irri- 
tating  sarcasm   which    penetrated    the   weakness    of   an 


statesmen  and  Parties.  33 

opponent's  argument  like  some  dissolving  acid.     In  the 
poem  from  which  we  have  quoted,  Moore  speaks  of  the 
eloquence  of  his  noble  friend  as  "not  like  those  rills  from 
a  height,  which  sparkle  and  foam  and  in  vapor  are  o'er; 
but  a  current  that  works  out  its  way  into  light  through  the 
filtering  recesses  of  thought  and  of  lore. "     Allowing  for 
the  exaggeration  of  friendship  and  poetry,  this  is  not  a  bad 
description  of  what  Lord  John  Russell's  style  became  at 
its  best.     The  thin  bright  stream  of  argument  worked  iti4 
way  slowly  out,  and  contrived  to  wear  a  path  for  itself 
through  obstacles  which  at  first  the  looker-on  might  have 
felt  assured  it  never  could  penetrate.     Lord  John  Russell's 
swordsmanship  was   the   swordsmanship  of  Saladin,  and 
not    that    of    stout    King    Richard.       But    it   was    very 
effective    sword-play    in    its    own    way.       Our    English 
system   of  government   by   party  makes   the   history   of 
Parliament    seem    like    that   of    a    succession   of    great 
political   duels.      Two  men  stand   constantly   confronted 
during  a  series  of  years,    one  of  whom   is   at  the  head 
of  the   Government,  while   the   other  is  at  the  head   of 
the  Opposition.     They  change  places  with  each  victory. 
The  conqueror  goes  into  office ;  the  conquered  into  oppo- 
sition.    This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  either  the  merits 
or  the  probable  duration  of  the  principle  of  government 
by  party;  it  is  enough  to  say  here  that  it  undoubtedly 
gives  a  very  animated  and  varied  complexion  to  our  polit- 
ical struggles,  and  invests  them,    indeed,  with  much   of 
the  glow  and  passion  of  actual  warfare.     It    has  often 
happened  that  the  two  leading  opponents  are  men  of  intel- 
lectual and  oratorical  powers  so  fairly  balanced  that  their 
followers  may  well  dispute  among  themselves  as  to  the 
superiority  of  their  respective  chiefs,  and  that  the  public 
in  general  may  become  divided  into  two  schools,  not  merely 
political,  but  even  critical,  according  to  their  partiality 
for  one  or  the  other.     We  still  dispute  as  to  whether  Fox 
or  Pitt  was  the  greater  leader,  the  greater  orator;  it  is 
probable  that  for  a  long  time  to  come  the  same  question 
Vol.  I.— 3  .  , 


54  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

will  be  asked  by  political  students  about  Gladstone  and 
Disraeli.  For  many  years  Lord  John  Russell  and  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel  stood  thus  opposed.  They  will  often  come  into 
contrast  and  comparison  in  these  pages.  For  the  pres- 
ent it  is  enough  to  say  that  Peel  had  by  far  the  more 
original  mind,  and  that  Lord  John  Russell  never  obtained 
so  great  an  influence  over  the  House  of  Commons  as  that 
which  his  rival  long  enjoyed.  The  heat  of  political  pas- 
sion afterward  induced  a  bitter  critic  to  accuse  Peel  of  lack 
of  originality  because  he  assimilated  readily  and  turned  to 
account  the  ideas  of  other  men.  Not  merely  the  criticism, 
but  the  principle  on  which  it  was  founded, was  altogether 
wrong.  It  ought  to  be  left  to  children  to  suppose  that 
nothing  is  original  but  that  which  we  make  up,  as  the 
childish  phrase  is,  "out  of  our  own  heads."  Originality 
In  politics,  as  in  every  field  of  art,  consists  in  the  use  and 
application  of  the  ideas  which  we  get  or  are  given  to  us. 
The  greatest  proof  Sir  Robert  Peel  ever  gave  of  high  and 
genuine  statesmanship  was  in  his  recognition  that  the 
time  had  come  to  put  into  practical  legislation  the  princi- 
ples which  Cobden  and  Villiers  and  Bright  had  been 
advocating  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Lord  John  Russell 
was  a  born  reformer.  He  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  Fox.  He 
was  cradled  in  the  principles  of  Liberalism.  He  held 
faithfully  to  his  creed;  he  was  one  of  its  boldest  and  keen- 
est champions.  He  had  great  advantages  over  Peel,  in 
the  mere  fact  that  he  had  begun  his  education  in  a  more 
enlightened  school.  But  he  wanted  passion  quite  as  much 
as  Peel  did,  and  remained  still  farther  than  Peel  below  the 
level  of  the  genuine  orator.  Russell,  as  we  have  said,  had 
not  long  held  the  post  of  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons 
when  the  first  Parliament  of  Queen  Victoria  assembled. 
He  was  still,  in  a  manner,  on  trial ;  and  even  among  his 
friends,  perhaps  especially  among  his  friends,  there  were 
whispers  that  his  confidence  in  himself  was  greater  than 
his  capacity  for  leadership. 

After  the  chiefs  of  Ministry  and  of  Opposition,  the  most 


statesmen  and  Parties.  35 

conspicuous  figure  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  the 
colossal  form  of  O'Connell,  the  great  Irish  agitator,  of 
whom  we  shall  hear  a  good  deal  more.  Among  the  fore- 
most orators  of  the  House  at  that  time  was  O'Connell's 
impassioned  lieutenant,  Richard  Lalor  Sheil.  It  is  cu- 
rious how  little  is  now  remembered  of  Sheil,  whom  so 
many  well-qualified  authorities  declared  to  be  a  genuine 
orator.  Lord  Beaconsfield,  in  one  of  his  novels,  speaks  of 
Sheil's  eloquence  in  terms  of  the  highest  praise,  and  dis- 
parages Canning.  It  is  but  a  short  time  since  Mr.  Glad- 
stone selected  Sheil  as  one  of  three  remarkable  illustrations 
of  great  success  as  a  speaker,  achieved  in  spite  of  serious 
defects  of  voice  and  delivery;  the  other  two  examples 
being  Dr.  Chalmers  and  Dr.  Newman.  Mr.  Gladstone 
described  Sheil's  voice  as  like  nothing  but  the  sound 
produced  by  "  a  tin  kettle  battered  about  from  place  to 
place,"  knocking  first  against  one  side  and  then  against 
another.  "In  anybody  else,"  Mr,  Gladstone  went  on  to 
say,  "  I  would  not,  if  it  had  been  in  my  choice,  like  to 
have  listened  to  that  voice ;  but  in  him  I  would  not  have 
changed  it,  for  it  was  part  of  a  most  remarkable  whole, 
and  nobody  ever  felt  it  painful  while  listening  to  it.  He 
was  a  great  orator,  and  an  orator  of  much  preparation,  I 
believe,  carried  even  to  words,  with  a  very  vivid  imagi- 
nation and  an  enormous  power  of  language,  and  of  strong 
feeling.  There  was  a  peculiar  character,  a  sort  of  half- 
wildness  in  his  aspect  and  delivery;  his  whole  figure,  and 
his  delivery,  and  his  voice  and  his  matter,  were  all  in  such 
perfect  keeping  with  one  another  that  they  formed  a  great 
Parliamentary  picture;  and  although  it  is  now  thirty-fivo 
years  since  I  heard  Mr,  Sheil,  my  recollection  of  him  is 
just  as  vivid  as  if  I  had  been  listening  to  him  to-day." 
This  surely  is  a  picture  of  a  great  orator,  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
says  Sheil  was.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  understand  how  a  man, 
without  being  a  great  orator,  could  have  persuaded  two 
experts  of  such  very  different  schools  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  Mr.   Disraeli  that  he  deserved  such  a  name.     Yet  the 


^6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

after-years  have  in  a  curious  but  unmistakable  way  denied 
the  claims  of  Sheil.  Perhaps  it  is  because,  if  he  really 
was  an  orator,  he  was  that  and  nothing  more,  that  our 
practical  age,  finding  no  mark  left  by  him  on  Parliament 
or  politics,  has  declined  to  take  much  account  even  of  his 
eloquence.  His  career  faded  away  into  second-class  min- 
isterial office,  and  closed  at  last,  somewhat  prematurely, 
in  the  little  court  of  Florence,  where  he  was  sent  as  the 
representative  of  England.  He  is  worth  mentioning  here, 
because  he  had  the  promise  of  a  splendid  reputation ;  be- 
cause the  charm  of  his  eloquence  evidently  lingered  long 
in  the  memories  of  those  to  whom  it  was  once  familiar, 
and  because  his  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  illustrations  of 
that  career  of  Irish  agitator,  which  begins  in  stormy  oppo- 
sition to  English  government,  and  subsides  after  awhile 
into  meek  recognition  of  its  title  and  adoption  of  its  min- 
isterial uniform.  O'Connell  we  have  passed  over  for  the 
present,  because  we  shall  hear  of  him  again;  but  of  Sheil 
it  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  hear  any  more. 

This  was  evidently  a  remarkable  Parliament,  with 
Russell  for  the  leader  of  one  party,  and  Peel  for  the  leader 
of  another;  with  O'Connell  and  Sheil  as  independent  sup- 
porters of  the  ministry ;  with  Mr.  Gladstone  still  compar- 
atively new  to  public  life,  and  Mr.  Disraeli  to  address  the 
Commons  for  the  first  time ;  with  Palmerston  still  unrecog- 
nized, and  Stanley  lately  gone  over  to  Conservatism,  itself 
the  newest  invented  thing  in  politics;  with  Grote  and 
Bulwer,  and  Joseph  Hume  and  Charles  Buller;  and  Ward 
and  Villiers,  Sir  Francis  Burdett  and  Smith  O'Brien,  and 
the  Radical  Alcibiades  of  Finsbury,  "  Tom"  Duncombe. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CANADA  AND  LORD  DURHAM. 

The  first  disturbance  to  the  quiet  and  good  promise  of 
the  new  reign  came  from  Canada.  The  Parliament  which 
we  have  described  met  for  the  first  time  on  November 
2oth,  1837,  and  was  to  have  been  adjourned  to  February 
ist,  1838;  but  the  news  which  began  to  arrive  from  Can- 
ada was  so  alarming  that  the  ministry  were  compelled  to 
change  their  purpose  and  fix  the  reassembling  of  the 
Houses  for  January  i6th.  The  disturbances  in  Canada 
had  already  broken  out  into  open  rebellion. 

The  condition  of  Canada  was  very  peculiar.  Lower  or 
Eastern  Canada  was  inhabited  for  the  most  part  by  men 
of  French  descent,  who  still  kept  up  in  the  midst  of  an 
active  and  moving  civilization  most  of  the  principles  and 
usages  which  belonged  to  France  before  the  Revolution. 
Even  to  this  day,  after  all  the  changes,  political  and  social, 
that  have  taken  place,  the  traveller  from  Europe  sees  in 
many  of  the  towns  of  Lower  Canada  an  old-fashioned 
France,  such  as  he  had  known  otherwise  only  in  books 
that  tell  of  France  before  '89.  Nor  is  this  only  in  small 
sequestered  towns  and  villages  which  the  impulses  of 
modern  ways  have  yet  failed  to  reach.  In  busy  and  trad- 
ing Montreal,  with  its  residents  made  up  of  Englishmen, 
Scotchmen,  and  Americans,  as  well  as  the  men  of  French 
descent,  the  visitor  is  more  immediately  conscious  of  the 
presence  of  what  may  be  called  an  old-fashioned  Cathol- 
icism than  he  is  in  Paris,  or  even  indeed  in  Rome.  In 
Quebec,  a  city  which  for  pictiiresqueness  and  beauty  of 
'situation  is  not  equalled  by  Edinburgh  or  Florence,  the 


38  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

curious  interest  of  the  place  is  further  increased,  the 
novelty  of  the  sensations  it  produces  in  the  visitor  is  made 
more  piquant,  by  the  evidence  he  meets  with  everywhere, 
through  its  quaint  and  steepy  streets  and  under  its  anti- 
quated archways,  of  the  existence  of  a  society  which  has 
hardly  in  France  survived  the  Great  Revolution.  At  the 
opening  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign,  the  undiluted  character 
of  this  French  mediaevalism  was,  of  course,  much  more 
remarkable.  It  would  doubtless  have  exhibited  itself 
quietly  enough  if  it  were  absolutely  undiluted.  Lower 
Canada  would  have  dozed  away  in  its  sleepy  picturesque- 
ness,  held  fast  to  its  ancient  ways,  and  allowed  a  bustling, 
giddy  world,  all  alive  with  commerce  and  ambition,  and 
desire  for  novelty  and  the  terribly  disturbing  thing  which 
unresting  people  called  progress,  to  rush  on  its  wild  path 
unheeded.  But  its  neighbors  and  its  newer  citizens  were 
not  disposed  to  allow  Lower  Canada  thus  to  rot  itself  in 
ease  on  the  decaying  wharves  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
the  St.  Charles.  In  the  large  towns  there  were  active 
traders  from  England  and  other  countries,  who  were  by 
no  means  content  to  put  up  with  Old- World  ways,  and  to 
let  the  magnificent  resources  of  the  place  run  to  waste. 
Upper  Canada,  on  the  other  hand,  was  all  new  as  to  its 
population,  and  was  full  of  the  modern  desire  for  com- 
mercial activity.  Upper  Canada  was  peopled  almost  ex- 
clusively by  inhabitants  from  Great  Britain.  Scotch 
settlers,  with  all  the  energy  and  push  of  their  country; 
men  from  the  northern  province  of  Ireland,  who  might  be 
described  as  virtually  Scotch  also,  came  there.  The 
emigrant  from  the  south  of  Ireland  went  to  the  United 
States  because  he  found  there  a  country  more  or  less  hos- 
tile to  England,  and  because  there  the  Catholic  Church 
was  understood  to  be  flourishing.  The  Ulsterman  went 
to  Canada  as  the  Scotchman  did,  because  he  saw  the  flag 
of  England  flying,  and  the  principle  of  religious  establish- 
ment which  he  admired  at  home  still  recognized.  It  is 
almost  needless  to  say  that  Englishmen  in  great  numbers 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  39 

were  settled  there,  whose  chief  desire  was  to  make  the 
colony  as  far  as  possible  a  copy  of  the  institutions  of  Eng- 
land. When  Canada  was  ceded  to  England  by  France, 
as  a  consequence  of  the  victories  of  Wolfe,  the  population 
was  nearly  all  in  the  lower  province,  and  therefore  was 
nearly  all  of  French  origin.  Since  the  cession  the  growth 
of  the  population  of  the  other  province  had  been  surpris- 
ingly rapid,  and  had  been  almost  exclusively  the  growth, 
as  we  have  seen,  of  immigration  from  Great  Britain,  one 
or  two  of  the  colonizing  states  of  the  European  continent, 
and  the  American  Republic  itself. 

It  is  easy  to  see  on  the  very  face  of  things  some  of  the 
difficulties  which  must  arise  in  the  development  of  such  a 
system.  The  French  of  Lower  Canada  would  regard  with 
almost  morbid  jealousy  any  legislation  which  appeared 
likely  to  interfere  with  their  ancient  ways  and  to  give  any 
advantage  or  favor  to  the  populations  of  British  descent. 
The  latter  would  see  injustice  or  feebleness  in  every  meas- 
ure which  did  not  assist  them  in  developing  their  more 
energetic  ideas.  The  home  Government,  in  such  a  condi- 
tion of  things,  often  has  especial  trouble  with  those  whom 
we  may  call  its  own  people.  Their  very  loyalty  to  the 
institutions  of  the  Old  Country  impels  them  to  be  unrea- 
sonable and  exacting.  It  is  not  easy  to  make  them  un- 
derstand why  they  should  not  be  at  the  least  encouraged, 
if  not  indeed  actually  enabled,  to  carry  boldly  out  the 
Anglicizing  policy  which  they  clearly  see  is  to  be  for  the 
good  of  the  colony  in  the  end.  The  Government  has  all 
the  difficulty  that  the  mother  of  a  household  has  when, 
with  the  best  intentions  and  the  most  conscientious  resolve 
to  act  impartially,  she  is  called  upon  to  manage  her  own 
children  and  the  children  of  her  husband's  former  mar- 
riage. Every  word  she  says,  every  resolve  she  is  induced 
to  acknowledge,  is  liable  to  be  regarded  with  jealousy  and 
dissatisfaction  on  the  one  side  as  well  as  on  the  other. 
"  You  are  doing  everything  to  favor  your  own  children, " 
the  one  set  cry  out.     "  You  ought  to  do  something  more 


40  A  History  of  Our  Own  imes. 

for  your  own  children,"  is  the  equally  querulous  remon 
strance  of  the  other. 

It  would  have  been  difficult,  therefore,  for  the  horn* 
Government,  however  wise  and  far-seeing  their  policy,  ta 
make  the  wheels  of  any  system  run  smoothly  at  once  id 
such  a  colony  as  Canada.  But  their  policy  certainly  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  either  wise  or  far-seeing.  The 
plan  of  government  adopted  looks  as  if  it  were  especially 
devised  to  bring  out  into  sharp  relief  all  the  antagonisms' 
that  were  natural  to  the  existing  state  of  things.  By  an  Act 
called  the  Constitution  of  1791,  Canada  was  divided  into 
two  provinces,  the  Upper  and  the  Lower.  Each  province 
had  a  separate  system  of  government — consisting  of  a 
governor,  an  executive  council  appointed  by  the  Crown, 
and  supposed  in  some  way  to  resemble  the  Privy  Council  of 
this  country ;  a  legislative  council,  the  members  of  which 
were  appointed  by  the  Crown  for  life ;  and  a  representative 
assembly,  the  members  of  which  were  elected  for  four 
years.  At  the  same  time  the  clergy  reserves  were  estab- 
lished by  Parliament.  One-seventh  of  the  waste  lands  of 
the  colony  was  set  aside  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Prot- 
estant clergy — a  fruitful  source  of  disturbance  and  ill- 
feeling. 

When  the  two  provinces  were  divided  in  1791,  the  inten- 
tion was  that  they  should  remain  distinct  in  fact  as  well 
as  in  name.  It  was  hoped  that  Lower  Canada  would 
remain  altogether  French,  and  that  Upper  Canada  would 
be  exclusively  English.  Then  it  was  thought  that  they 
might  be  governed  on  their  separate  systems  as  securely 
and  with  as  little  trouble  as  we  now  govern  the  Mauritius 
on  one  system  and  Malta  on  another. 

Those  who  formed  such  an  idea  do  not  seem  to  have 
taken  any  counsel  with  geography.  The  one  fact,  that 
Upper  Canada  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  any  means  of 
communication  with  Europe  and  the  whole  Eastern  world 
except  through  Lower  Canada,  or  else  through  the  United 
States,  ought  to  have  settled  the  question  at  once.     It  was 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  4 1 

in  Lower  Canada  that  the  greatest  difficulties  arose.  A 
constant  antagonism  grew  up  between  the  majority  of  the 
legislative  council,  who  were  nominees  of  the  Crown,  and 
the  majority  of  the  representative  assembly,  who  were 
elected  by  the  population  of  the  province.  The  home 
Government  encouraged,  and  indeed  kept  up,  that  most 
odious  and  dangerous  of  all  instruments  for  the  supposed 
management  of  a  colony — a  "  British  party"  devoted  to  the 
so-called  interests  of  the  mother-country,  and  obedient  to 
the  word  of  command  from  their  masters  and  patrons  at 
home.  The  majority  in  the  legislative  council  constantly 
thwarted  the  resolutions  of  the  vast  majority  of  the  popular 
assembly.  Disputes  arose  as  to  the  voting  of  supplies. 
The  Government  retained  in  their  service  officials  whom 
the  representative  assembly  had  condemned,  and  insisted 
on  the  right  to  pay  them  their  salaries  out  of  certain  funds 
of  the  colony.  The  representative  assembly  took  to  stop- 
ping the  supplies,  and  the  Government  claimed  the  right 
to  counteract  this  measure  by  appropriating  to  the  purpose 
such  public  moneys  as  happened  to  be  within  their  reach 
at  the  time.  The  colony — for  indeed  on  these  subjects  the 
population  of  Lower  Canada,  right  or  wrong,  was  so  near 
to  being  of  one  mind  that  we  may  take  the  declarations  of 
public  meetings  as  representing  the  colony — demanded 
that  the  legislative  council  should  be  made  elective,  and 
that  the  colonial  government  should  not  be  allowed  to 
dispose  of  the  moneys  of  the  colony  at  their  pleasure. 
The  House  of  Commons  and  the  Government  here  replied 
by  refusing  to  listen  to  the  proposal  to  make  the  legisla- 
tive council  an  elective  body,  and  authorizing  the  provin- 
cial government,  without  the  consent  of  the  colonial 
representation,  to  appropriate  the  money  in  the  treasury 
for  the  administration  of  justice  and  the  maintenance  of 
the  executive  system.  This  was,  in  plain  words,  to  an- 
nounce to  the  French  population,  who  made  up  the  vast 
majority,  and  whom  we  had  taught  to  believe  in  the 
representative   form    of    government,    that   their   wishes 


42  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

would  never  count  for  anything,  and  that  the  colony  was 
to  be  ruled  solely  at  the  pleasure  of  the  little  British  party 
of  officials  and  Crown  nominees.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  that  in  all  these  disputes  the  popular  majority 
were  in  the  right  and  the  officials  in  the  wrong.  No  one 
can  doubt  that  there  was  much  bitterness  of  feeling  arising 
out  of  the  mere  differences  of  race.  The  French  and  the 
English  could  not  be  got  to  blend.  In  some  places,  as  it 
was  afterward  said  in  the  famous  report  of  Lord  Durham, 
the  two  sets  of  colonists  never  publicly  met  together  ex- 
cept in  the  jury-box,  and  then  only  for  the  obstruction 
of  justice.  The  British  residents  complained  bitterly  of 
being  subject  to  French  law  and  procedure  in  so  many  of 
their  affairs.  The  tenure  of  land  and  many  other  condi- 
tions of  the  system  were  antique  French,  and  the  French 
law  worked,  or  rather  did  not  work,  in  civil  affairs  side 
by  side  with  the  equally  impeded  British  law  in  criminal 
matters.  At  last  the  representative  assembly  refused  to 
vote  any  further  supplies  or  to  carry  on  any  further  busi- 
ness. They  formulated  their  grievances  against  the  home 
Government.  Their  complaints  were  of  arbitrary  conduct 
on  the  part  of  the  governors ;  intolerable  composition  of 
the  legislative  council,  which  they  insisted  ought  to  be 
elective;  illegal  appropriation  of  the  public  money;  and 
violent  prorogation  of  the  provincial  Parliament. 

One  of  the  leading  men  in  the  movement  which  after- 
ward became  rebellion  in  Lower  Canada  was  Mr.  Louis 
Joseph  Papineau.  This  man  had  risen  to  high  position 
by  his  talents,  his  energy,  and  his  undoubtedly  honorable 
character.  He  had  represented  Montreal  in  the  Repre- 
sentative Assembly  of  Lower  Canada,  and  he  afterward 
became  Speaker  of  the  House.  He  made  himself  leader 
of  the  movement  to  protest  against  the  policy  of  the  gov- 
ernors, and  that  of  the  Government  at  home,  by  whom 
they  were  sustained.  He  held  a  series  of  meetings,  at 
some  of  which  undoubtedly  rather  strong  language  was 
used,  and  too  frequent  and  significant  appeals  were  made 


,  Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  4J 

to  the  example  held  out  to  the  population  of  Lower  Canada 
by  the  successful  revolt  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Pa- 
pineau  also  planned  the  calling  together  of  a  great  con- 
vention to  discuss  and  proclaim  the  grievances  of  the 
colonies.  Lord  Gosford,  the  governor,  began  by  dismiss- 
ing several  militia  officers  who  had  taken  part  in  some  of 
these  demonstrations;  Mr.  Papineau  himself  was  an  officer 
of  this  force.  Then  the  governor  issued  warrants  for  the 
apprehension  of  many  members  of  the  popular  Assembly 
on  the  charge  of  high-treason.  Some  of  these  at  once  left 
the  country ;  others  against  whom  warrants  were  issued 
were  arrested,  and  a  sudden  resistance  was  made  by  their 
friends  and  supporters.  Then,  in  the  manner  familiar  to 
all  who  have  read  anything  of  the  history  of  revolutionary 
movements,  the  resistance  to  a  capture  of  prisoners  sud- 
denly transformed  itself  into  open  rebellion. 

The  rebellion  was  not,  in  a  military  sense,  a  very  great 
thing.  At  its  first  outbreak  the  military  authorities  were 
for  a  moment  surprised,  and  the  rebels  obtained  one  or 
two  trifling  advantages.  But  the  commander-in-chief  at 
once  showed  energy  adequate  to  the  occasion,  and  used, 
as  it  was  his  duty  to  do,  a  strong  hand  in  putting  the 
movement  down.  The  rebels  fought  with  something  like 
desperation  in  one  or  two  instances,  and  there  was,  it  must 
be  said,  a  good  deal  of  blood  shed.  The  disturbance, 
however,  after  a  while  extended  to  the  upper  province. 
Upper  Canada  too  had  its  complaint  against  its  governors 
and  the  home  Government,  and  its  protests  against  having 
its  offices  all  disposed  of  by  a  "  family  compact ;"  but  the 
rebellious  movement  does  not  seem  to  have  taken  a  genuine 
hold  of  the  province  at  any  time.  There  was  some  dis- 
content ;  there  was  a  constant  stimulus  to  excitement  kept 
up  from  across  the  American  frontier  by  sympathizers 
with  any  republican  movement;  and  there  were  some 
excitable  persons  inclined  for  revolutionary  change  in  the 
province  itself  whose  zeal  caught  fire  when  the  flame  broke 
out  in  Lower  Canada.     But  it  seems  to  have  been  an 


44  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

exotic  movement  altogether,  and,  so  far  as  its  military 
history  is  concerned,  deserves  notice  chiefly  for  the  chiv- 
alrous eccentricity  of  the  plan  by  which  the  governor  of 
the  province  undertook  to  put  it  down.  The  governor  was 
the  gallant  and  fanciful  soldier  and  traveller,  Sir  Francis, 
then  Major,  Head.  He  who  had  fought  at  Waterloo,  and 
seen  much  service  besides,  was  quietly  performing  the 
duties  of  Assistant  Poor  Law  Commissioner  for  the  county 
of  Kent,  when  he  was  summoned,  in  1835,  at  a  moment's 
notice  to  assume  the  governorship  of  Upper  Canada. 
When  the  rebellion  broke  out  in  that  province.  Major 
Head  proved  himself  not  merely  equal  to  the  occasion,  but 
boldly  superior  to  it.  He  promptly  resolved  to  win  a 
grand  moral  victory  over  all  rebellion  then  and  for  the 
future.  He  was  seized  with  a  desire  to  show  to  the  whole 
world  how  vain  it  was  for  any  disturber  to  think  of  shak- 
ing the  loyalty  of  the  province  under  his  control.  He 
issued  to  rebellion  in  general  a  challenge  not  unlike  that 
which  Shakespeare's  Prince  Harry  offers  to  the  chiefs  of 
the  insurrection  against  Henry  IV.  He  invited  it  to  come 
on  and  settle  the  controversy  by  a  sort  of  duel.  He  sent  all 
the  regular  soldiers  out  of  the  province  to  the  help  of  the 
authorities  of  Lower  Canada;  he  allowed  the  rebels  to 
mature  their  plans  in  any  way  they  liked ;  he  permitted 
them  to  choose  their  own  day  and  hour,  and  when  they 
were  ready  to  begin  their  assaults  on  constituted  authority, 
he  summoned  to  his  side  the  militia  and  all  the  loyal  in- 
habitants, and  with  their  help  he  completely  extinguished 
the  rebellion.  It  was  but  a  very  trifling  affair;  it  went 
out  or  collapsed  in  a  moment.  Major  Head  had  his  desire. 
He  showed  that  rebellion  in  that  province  was  not  a  thing 
serious  enough  to  call  for  the  intervention  of  regular 
troops.  The  loyal  colonists  were  for  the  most  part  de- 
lighted with  the  spirited  conduct  of  their  leader  and  his 
new-fashioned  way  of  dealing  with  rebellion.  No  doubt 
the  moral  effect  was  highly  imposing.  The  plan  was 
almost  as  original  as  that  described  in  Herodotus    and 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  45 

introduced  into  one  of  Massinger's  plays,  when  the  moral 
authority  of  the  masters  is  made  to  assert  itself  over  the 
rebellious  slaves  by  the  mere  exhibition  of  the  symbolic 
whip.  But  the  authorities  at  home  took  a  somewhat  more 
prosaic  view  of  the  policy  of  Sir  Francis  Head.  It  was 
suggested  that  if  the  fears  of  many  had  been  realized  and  the 
rebellion  had  been  aided  by  a  large  force  of  sympathizers 
from  the  United  States,  the  moral  authority  of  Canadian 
loyalty  might  have  stood  greatly  in  need  of  the  material 
presence  of  regular  troops.  In  the  end  Sir  Francis  Head 
resigned  his  office.  His  loyalty,  courage,  and  success 
were  acknowledged  by  the  gift  of  a  baronetcy ;  and  he 
obtained  the  admiration  not  merely  of  those  who  approved 
his  policy,  but  even  of  many  among  those  who  felt  bound 
to  condemn  it.  Perhaps  it  may  be  mentioned  that  there 
were  some  who  persisted  to  the  last  in  the  belief  that  Sir 
Francis  Head  was  not  by  any  means  so  rashly  chivalrous  as 
he  had  allowed  himself  to  be  thought,  and  that  he  had  full 
preparation  made,  if  his  moral  demonstration  should  fail, 
to  supply  its  place  in  good  time  with  more  commonplace 
and  effective  measures. 

The  news  of  the  outbreaks  in  Canada  created  a  natural 
excitement  in  this  country.  There  was  a  very  strong  feel- 
ing of  sympathy  among  many  classes  here — not,  indeed, 
with  the  rebellion,  but  with  the  colony  which  complained 
of  what  seemed  to  be  genuine  and  serious  grievances. 
Public  meetings  were  held  at  which  resolutions  were 
passed,  ascribing  the  disturbances,  in  the  first  place,  to  the 
refusal  by  the  Government  of  any  redress  sought  for  by 
the  colonists.  Mr.  Hume,  the  pioneer  of  financial  reform, 
took  the  side  of  the  colonists  very  warmly,  both  in  and  out 
of  Parliament.  During  one  of  the  Parliamentary  debates 
on  the  subject.  Sir  Robert  Peel  referred  to  the  principal 
leader  of  the  rebellion  in  Upper  Canada  as  "  a  Mr.  Mac- 
kenzie. "  Mr.  Hume  resented  this  way  of  speaking  of  a 
prominent  colonist,  and  remarked  that  "  there  was  a  Mr. 
Mackenzie  as  there  might  be  a  Sir  Robert  Peel,"  and 


46  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

created  some  amusement  by  referring-  to  the  declarations 
of  Lord  Chatham  on  the  American  Stamp  Act,  which  he 
cited  as  the  opinions  of  "  a  Mr.  Pitt. "  Lord  John  Russell, 
on  the  part  of  the  Government,  introduced  a  bill  to  deal 
with  the  rebellious  province.  The  bill  proposed,  in  brief, 
to  suspend  for  a  time  the  constitution  of  Lower  Canada, 
and  to  send  out  from  this  country  a  governor-general  and 
high-commissioner,  with  full  powers  to  deal  with  the  re- 
bellion, and  to  remodel  the  constitution  of  both  provinces. 
The  proposal  met  with  a  good  deal  of  opposition  at  first 
on  very  different  grounds.  Mr.  Roebuck,  who  was  then, 
as  it  happened,  out  of  Parliament,  appeared  as  the  agent 
and  representative  of  the  province  of  Lower  Canada,  and 
demanded  to  be  heard  at  the  bar  of  both  the  Houses  in 
opposition  to  the  bill.  After  some  little  demur  his  de- 
mand was  granted,  and  he  stood  at  the  bar,  first  of  the 
Commons,  and  then  of  the  Lords,  and  opposed  the  bill  on 
the  ground  that  it  unjustly  suspended  the  constitution  of 
Lower  Canada  in  consequence  of  disturbances  provoked 
by  the  intolerable  oppression  of  the  home  Government. 
A  critic  of  that  day  remarked  that  most  orators  seemed  to 
make  it  their  business  to  conciliate  and  propitiate  the 
audience  they  desired  to  win  over,  but  that  Mr.  Roebuck 
seemed  from  the  very  first  to  be  determined  to  set  all  his 
hearers  against  him  and  his  cause.  Mr.  Roebuck's 
speeches  were,  however,  exceedingly  argumentative  and 
powerful  appeals.  Their  effect  was  enhanced  by  the 
singularly  youthful  appearance  of  the  speaker,  who  is  de- 
scribed as  looking  like  a  boy  hardly  out  of  his  teens. 

It  was  evident,  however,  that  the  proposal  of  the  Gov- 
ernment must  in  the  main  be  adopted.  The  general 
opinion  of  Parliament  decided,  not  unreasonably,  that 
that  was  not  the  moment  for  entering  into  a  consideration 
of  the  past  policy  of  the  Government,  and  that  the  country 
could  do  nothing  better  just  then  than  send  out  some  man 
of  commanding  ability  and  character  to  deal  with  the  ex- 
isting condition  of  things.     There  was  an  almost  universal 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  47 

admission  that  the  Government  had  found  the  right  man 
when  Lord  John  Russell  mentioned  the  name  of  Lord 
Durham. 

Lord  Durham  was  a  man  of  remarkable  character.  It  is 
a  matter  of  surprise  how  little  his  name  is  thought  of  by 
the  present  generation,  seeing  what  a  strenuous  figure  he 
seemed  in  the  eyes  of  his  contemporaries,  and  how  strik- 
ing a  part  he  played  in  the  politics  of  a  time  which  has 
even  still  some  living  representatives.  He  belonged  to 
one  of  the  oldest  families  in  England.  The  Lambtons 
had  lived  on  their  estate  in  the  North,  in  uninterrupted 
succession,  since  the  Conquest.  The  male  succession,  it  is 
stated,  never  was  interrupted  since  the  twelfth  century. 
They  were  not,  however,  a  family  of  aristocrats.  Their 
wealth  was  derived  chiefly  from  coal  mines,  and  grew  up 
in  later  days ;  the  property  at  first,  and  for  a  long  time, 
was  of  inconsiderable  value.  For  more  than  a  century, 
however,  the  Lambtons  had  come  to  take  rank  among  the 
gentry  of  the  county,  and  some  member  of  the  family  had 
represented  the  city  of  Durham  in  the  House  of  Commons 
from  1727  until  the  early  death  of  Lord  Durham's  father 
in  December,  1797.  William  Henry  Lambton,  Lord 
Durham's  father,  was  a  stanch  Whig,  and  had  been  a 
friend  and  associate  of  Fox.  John  George  Lambton,  the 
son,  was  born  at  Lambton  Castle  in  April,  1792.  Before 
he  was  quite  twenty  years  of  age,  he  made  a  romantic 
marriage  at  Gretna  Green  with  a  lady  who  died  three  years 
after.  He  served  for  a  short  time  in  a  regiment  of  Hus- 
sars. About  a  year  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife  he 
married  the  eldest  daughter  of  Lord  Grey.  He  was  then 
only  twenty-four  years  of  age.  He  had  before  this  been 
returned  to  Parliament  for  the  county  of  Durham,  and  he 
soon  distinguished  himself  as  a  very  advanced  and  ener- 
getic reformer.  While  in  the  Commons  he  seldom  ad- 
dressed the  House,  but  when  he  did  speak,  it  was  in  sup- 
port of  some  measure  of  reform,  or  against  what  he  con- 
ceived  to   be   antiquated   and   illiberal   legislation.     He 


48  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

brought  out  a  plan  of  his  own  for  Parliamentary  reform 
in  1821.  In  1828  he  was  raised  to  the  peerage,  with  the 
title  of  Baron  Durham.  When  the  ministry  of  Lord  Grey 
was  formed,  in  November,  1830,  Lord  Durham  became 
Lord  Privy  Seal.  He  is  said  to  have  had  an  almost  com- 
plete control  over  Lord  Grey.  He  had  an  impassioned 
and  energetic  nature,  which  sometimes  drove  him  into 
outbreaks  of  feeling  which  most  of  his  colleagues  dreaded. 
Various  highly-colored  descriptions  of  stormy  scenes  be- 
tween him  and  his  companions  in  office  are  given  Vy  writ- 
ers of  the  time.  Lord  Durham,  his  enemies  and  some  of 
his  friends  said,  bullied  and  browbeat  his  opponents  in 
the  cabinet,  and  would  sometimes  hardly  allow  his  father- 
in-law  and  official  chief  a  chance  of  putting  in  a  word  on 
the  other  side,  or  in  mitigation  of  his  tempestuous  mood. 
He  was  thorough  in  his  reforming  purposes,  and  would 
have  rushed  at  radical  changes  with  scanty  consideration 
for  the  time  or  for  the  temper  of  his  opponents.  He  had 
very  little  reverence  indeed  for  what  Carlyle  calls  the 
majesty  of  custom.  "Whatever  he  wished  he  strongly 
wished.  He  had  no  idea  of  reticence,  and  cared  not 
much  for  the  decorum  of  office.  It  is  not  necessary  to  be- 
lieve all  the  stories  told  by  those  who  hated  and  dreaded 
Lord  Durham,  in  order  to  accept  the  belief  that  he  really 
was  somewhat  of  an  enfant  terrible  to  the  stately  Lord  Grey, 
and  to  the  easy-going  colleagues  who  were  by  no  mean.j 
absolutely  eaten  up  by  their  zeal  for  reform.  In  the  pow- 
erful speech  which  he  delivered  in  the  House  of  Lords  on 
the  Reform  Bill  there  is  a  specimen  of  his  eloquence  of 
denunciation  which  might  well  have  startled  listeners, 
even  in  those  days  when  the  license  of  speech  was  often 
sadly  out  of  proportion  with  its  legalized  liberty.  Lord 
Durham  was  especially  roused  to  anger  by  some  observa- 
tions made  in  the  debate  of  a  previous  night  by  the  Bishop 
of  Exeter.  He  described  the  prelate's  speech  as  an  ex- 
hibition of  "  coarse  and  virulent  invective,  malignant  and 
false   insinuation,   the  grossest  perversions  of   historical 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  49 

facts  decked  out  with  all  the  choicest  flowers  of  pamphle- 
teering slang."  He  was  called  to  order  for  these  words, 
and  a  peer  moved  that  they  be  taken  down.  Lord  Dur- 
ham was  by  no  means  dismayed.  He  coolly  declared  that 
he  did  not  mean  to  defend  his  language  as  the  most 
elegant  or  graceful,  but  that  it  exactly  conveyed  the  ideas 
regarding  the  bishop  which  he  meant  to  express;  that 
he  believed  the  bishop's  speech  to  contain  insinuations 
which  were  as  false  as  scandalous;  that  he  had  said  so; 
that  he  now  begged  leave  to  repeat  the  words,  and  that  he 
paused  to  give  any  noble  lord  who  thought  fit  an  oppor- 
tunity of  taking  them  down.  Not  one,  however,  seemed 
disposed  to  encounter  any  further  this  impassioned  adver- 
sary, and  when  he  had  had  his  say,  Lord  Durham  became 
somewhat  mollified,  and  endeavored  to  soften  the  pain  of 
the  impression  he  had  made.  He  begged  the  House  of 
Lords  to  make  some  allowance  for  him  if  he  had  spoken 
too  warmly;  for,  as  he  said  with  much  pathetic  force,  his 
mind  had  lately  been  tortured  by  domestic  loss.  He  thus 
alluded  to  the  recent  death  of  his  eldest  son — "  a  beautiful 
boy, "  says  a  writer  of  some  years  ago,  "  whose  features 
will  live  forever  in  the  well-known  picture  by  Lawrence. " 
The  whole  of  this  incident — the  fierce  attack  and  the 
sudden  pathetic  expression  of  regret — will  serve-  well 
enough  to  illustrate  the  emotional,  uncontrolled  character 
of  Lord  Durham.  He  was  one  of  the  men  who,  even  when 
they  are  thoroughly  in  the  right,  have  often  the  unhappy 
art  of  seeming  to  put  themselves  completely  in  the  wrong. 
He  was  the  most  advanced  of  all  the  reformers  in  the  re- 
forming ministry  of  Lord  Grey.  His  plan  of  reform  in 
182 1  proposed  to  give  four  hundred  members  to  certain 
districts  of  town  and  country,  in  which  every  householder 
should  have  a  vote.  When  Lord  Grey  had  formed  his  re- 
form ministry,  Lord  Durham  sent  for  Lord  John  Russell 
and  requested  him  to  draw  up  a  scheme  of  reform.  A 
committee  was  formed  on  Lord  Durham's  suggestion, 
consisting  of  Sir  James  Graham,  Lord  Duncannon,  Lord 
Vol.  I.— 4 


50  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

John  Russell,  and  Lord  Durham  himself.  Lord  John 
Russell  drew  up  a  plan,  which  he  published  long  after, 
with  the  alterations  which  Lord  Durham  had  suggested 
and  written  in  his  own  hand  on  the  margin.  If  Lord 
Durham  had  had  his  way  the  ballot  would  at  that  time 
have  been  included  in  the  programme  of  the  Government ; 
and  it  was,  indeed,  understood  that  at  one  period  of  the 
discussions  he  had  won  over  his  colleagues  to  his  opinion 
on  that  subject.  He  was,  in  a  word,  the  Radical  member 
of  the  cabinet,  with  all  the  energy  which  became  such  a 
character ;  with  that  "  magnificent  indiscretion"  which  had 
been  attributed  to  a  greater  man — Edmund  Burke ;  with 
all  that  courage  of  his  opinions  which,  in  the  Frenchified 
phraseology  of  modern  politics,  is  so  much  talked  of,  so 
rarely  found,  and  so  little  trusted  or  successful  when  it 
is  found. 

Not  long  after  Lord  Durham  was  raised  in  the  peerage 
and  became  an  earl.  His  influence  over  Lord  Grey  con- 
tinued great,  but  his  differences  of  opinion  with  his  former 
colleagues — he  had  resigned  his  office — became  greater 
and  greater  every  day.  More  than  once  he  had  taken  the 
public  into  his  confidence  in  his  characteristic  and  heed- 
less way.  He  was  sent  on  a  mission  to  Russia,  perhaps  to 
get  him  out  of  the  way,  and  afterward  he  was  made  am- 
bassador at  the  Russian  court.  In  the  interval  between 
his  mission  and  his  formal  appointment  he  had  come  back 
to  England  and  performed  a  series  of  enterprises  which 
in  the  homely  and  undignified  language  of  American  poli- 
tics would  probably  be  called  "stumping  the  country." 
He  was  looked  to  with  much  hope  by  the  more  extreme 
Liberals  in  the  country,  and  with  corresponding  dislike 
and  dread  by  all  who  thought  the  country  had  gone  far 
enough,  or  much  too  far  in  the  recent  political  changes. 

None  of  his  opponents,  however,  denied  his  great  abil- 
ity. He  was  never  deterred  by  conventional  beliefs  and 
habits  from  looking  boldly  into  the  very  heart  of  a  great 
political  difficulty.     He  was  never  afraid  to  propose  what, 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  51 

in  times  later  than  his,  have  been  called  heroic  remedies. 
There  was  a  general  impression,  perhaps,  even  among 
those  who  liked  him  least,  that  he  was  a  sort  of  "unem- 
ployed Caesar,"  a  man  who  only  required  a  field  large 
enough  to  develop  great  qualities  in  the  ruling  of  men. 
The  difficulties  in  Canada  seemed  to  have  come  as  if  ex- 
pressly to  give  him  an  opportunity  of  proving  himself  all 
that  his  friends  declared  him  to  be,  or  of  justifying  for- 
ever the  distrust  of  his  enemies.  He  went  out  to  Canada 
,  with  the  assurance  of  every  one  that  his  expedition  would 
either  make  or  mar  a  career,  if  not  a  country. 

Lord  Durham  went  out  to  Canada  with  the  brightest 
hopes  and  prospects.  He  took  with  him  two  of  the  men 
best  qualified  in  England  at  that  time  to  make  his  mission 
a  success — Mr.  Charles  BuUer  and  Mr.  Edward  Gibbon 
Wakefield.  He  imderstood  that  he  was  going  out  as  a 
dictator,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  expedition 
was  regarded  in  this  light  by  England  and  by  the  colonies. 
We  have  remarked  that  people  looked  on  his  mission  as 
likely  to  make  or  mar  a  career,  if  not  a  country.  What 
it  did,  however,  was  somewhat  different  from  that  which 
any  one  expected.  Lord  Durham  found  out  a  new  alter- 
native. He  made  a  country,  and  he  marred  a  career.  He 
is  distinctly  the  founder  of  the  system  which  has  since 
worked  with  such  gratifying  success  in  Canada;  he  is  the 
founder,  even,  of  the  principle  which  allowed  the  quiet 
development  of  the  provinces  into  a  confederation  with 
neighboring  colonies  under  the  name  of  the  Dominion  of 
Canada.  But  the  singular  quality  which  in  home  politics 
had  helped  to  mar  so  much  of  Lord  Durham's  personal 
career  was  in  full  work  during  his  visit  to  Canada.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  find  in  modern  political  history  so  curi- 
ous an  example  of  splendid  and  lasting  success  combined 
with  all  the  appearance  of  utter  and  disastrous  failure.  The 
mission  of  Lord  Durham  saved  Canada.  It  ruined  Lord 
Durham.  At  the  moment  it  seemed  to  superficial  observ- 
ers to  have  been  as  injurious  to  the  colony  as  to  the  man. 


52  A  History  of  Our  Own  Time$. 

Lord  Durham  arrived  in  Quebec  at  the  end  of  May, 
1838.  He  at  once  issued  a  proclamation,  in  style  like  that 
of  a  dictator.  It  was  not  in  any  wa)'  unworthy  of  the 
occasion,  which  especially  called  for  the  intervention  of  a 
brave  and  enlightened  dictatorship.  He  declared  that  he 
would  unsparingly  punish  any  who  violated  the  laws,  but 
he  frankly  invited  the  co-operation  of  the  colonies  to  form 
a  new  system  of  government  really  suited  to  their  wants 
and  to  the  altering  conditions  of  civilization.  Unfortu- 
nately, he  had  hardly  entered  on  his  work  of  dictatorship 
when  he  found  that  he  was  no  longer  a  dictator.  In  the 
passing  of  the  Canada  Bill  through  Parliament  the  powers 
which  he  understood  were  to  be  conferred  upon  him  had 
been  considerably  reduced.  Lord  Durham  went  to  work, 
however,  as  if  he  were  still  invested  with  absolute  author- 
ity over  all  the  laws  and  conditions  of  the  colony.  A 
very  Caesar  laying  down  the  line  for  the  future  government 
of  a  province  could  hardly  have  been  more  boldly  arbi- 
trary. Let  it  be  said,  also,  that  Lord  Durham's  arbitrari- 
ness was  for  the  most  part  healthy  in  effect  and  just  in 
spirit.  But  it  gave  an  immense  opportunity  of  attack  on 
himself  and  on  the  Government  to  the  enemies  of  both  at 
home.  Lord  Durham  had  hardly  begun  his  work  of 
reconstruction  when  his  recall  was  clamored  for  by  vehe- 
ment voices  in  Parliament. 

Lord  Durham  began  by  issuing  a  series  of  ordinances  in- 
tended to  provide  for  the  security  of  Lower  Canada.  He 
proclaimed  a  very  liberal  amnesty,  to  which,  however, 
there  were  certain  exceptions.  The  leaders  of  the  rebel- 
lious movement,  Papineau  and  others,  who  had  escaped 
from  the  colony,  were  excluded  from  the  amnesty.  So 
likewise  were  certain  prisoners  who  either  had  voluntarily 
confessed  themselves  guilty  of  high-treason,  or  had  been 
induced  to  make  such  an  acknowledgment  in  the  hope  of 
obtaining  a  mitigated  punishment.  These  Lord  Durham 
ordered  to  be  transported  to  Bermuda;  and  for  any  of 
these,  or  of  the  leaders  who  had  escaped,  who  should  re- 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  53 

turn  to  the  colony  without  permission,  he  proclaimed  that 
they  should  be  deemed  guilty  of  high-treason,  and  con- 
demned to  suffer  death.  It  needs  no  learned  legal  argu- 
ment to  prove  that  this  was  a  proceeding  not  to  be  justified 
by  any  of  the  ordinary  forms  of  law.  Lord  Durham  had 
not  power  to  transport  any  one  to  Bermuda.  He  had  no 
authority  over  Bermuda;  he  had  no  authority  which  he 
could  delegate  to  the  officials  of  Bermuda  enabling  them 
to  detain  political  prisoners.  Nor  had  he  any  power  to 
declare  that  persons  who  returned  to  the  colony  were  to  be 
liable  to  the  punishment  of  death.  It  is  not  a  capital 
offence  by  any  of  the  laws  of  England  for  even  a  trans- 
ported convict  to  break  bounds  and  return  to  his  home 
All  this  was  quite  illegal ;  that  is  to  say,  was  outside  the 
limits  of  Lord  Durham's  legal  authority.  Lord  Durhauj 
was  well  aware  of  the  fact.  He  had  not  for  a  moment 
supposed  that  he  was  acting  in  accordance  with  ordinary 
English  law.  He  was  acting  in  the  spirit  of  a  dictator,  at 
once  bold  and  merciful,  who  is  imder  the  impression  that 
he  has  been  invested  with  extraordinary  powers  for  the 
very  reason  that  the  crisis  does  not  admit  of  the  ordinary 
operations  of  law.  For  the  decree  of  death  to  banished 
men  returning  without  permission,  he  had,  indeed,  the 
precedent  and  authority  of  acts  passed  already  by  the  colo- 
nial Parliament  itself;  but  Lord  Durham  did  not  care  for 
any  such  authority.  He  found  that  he  had  on  his  hands  a 
considerable  number  of  prisoners  whom  it  would  be  ab- 
surd to  put  on  trial  in  Lower  Canada  with  the  usual  forms 
of  law.  It  would  have  been  absolutely  impossible  to  get 
any  unpacked  jury  to  convict  them.  They  would  have 
been  triumphantly  acquitted.  The  authority  of  the  Crown 
would  have  been  brought  into  greater  contempt  than  ever. 
So  little  faith  had  the  colonists  in  the  impartial  working 
of  the  ordinary  law  in  the  governor's  hands,  that  the  uni- 
versal impression  in  Lower  Canada  was  that  Lord  Durham 
would  have  the  prisoners  tried  by  a  packed  jury  of  his 
own  officials,  convicted  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  executed 


54  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

out  of  hand.  It  was  with  amazement  people  found  that 
the  new  governor  would  not  stoop  to  the  infamy  of  pack- 
ing a  jury.  Lord  Durham  saw  no  better  way  out  of  the 
difficulty  than  to  impose  a  sort  of  exile  on  those  who  ad- 
mitted their  connection  with  the  rebellion,  and  to  prevent 
by  the  threat  of  a  severe  penalty  the  return  of  those  who 
had  already  fled  from  the  colony.  His  amnesty  measure 
was  large  and  liberal ;  but  he  did  not  see  that  he  could 
allow  prominent  offenders  to  remain  unrebuked  in  the 
colony;  and  to  attempt  to  bring  them  to  trial  would  have 
been  to  secure  for  them,  not  punishment,  but  public 
honor. 

Another  measure  of  Lord  Durham's  was  likewise  open 
to  the  charge  of  excessive  use  of  power.  The  act  which 
appointed  him  prescribed  that  he  should  be  advised  by 
a  council,  and  that  every  ordinance  of  his  should  be  signed 
by  at  least  five  of  its  members.  There  was  already  a 
council  in  existence  nominated  by  Lord  Durham's  prede- 
cessor, Sir  J.  Colborne — a  sort  of  provisional  government 
put  together  to  supply  for  the  moment  the  place  of  the 
suspended  political  constitution.  This  council  Lord  Dur- 
ham set  aside  altogether,  and  substituted  for  it  one  of  his 
own  making,  and  composed  chiefly  of  his  secretaries  and 
the  members  of  his  staff.  In  truth  this  was  but  a  part  of 
the  policy  which  he  had  marked  out  for  himself.  He  was 
resolved  to  play  the  game  which  he  honestly  believed  he 
could  play  better  than  any  one  else.  He  had  in  his  mind, 
partly  from  the  inspiration  of  the  gifted  and  well-in- 
structed men  who  accompanied  and  advised  him,  a  plan 
which  he  was  firmly  convinced  would  be  the  salvation  of 
the  colony.  Events  have  proved  that  he  was  right.  His 
disposal  of  the  prisoners  was  only  a  clearing  of  the  decks 
for  the  great  action  of  remodelling  the  colony.  He  did 
not  allow  a  form  of  law  to  stand  between  him  and  his  pur- 
pose. Indeed,  as  we  have  already  said,  he  regarded  him- 
self as  a  dictator  sent  out  to  reconstruct  a  whole  system  in 
the  best  way  he  could.     When  he  was  accused  of  having 


^Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  55 

gone  beyond  the  law,  he  asked  with  a  scorn  not  wholly 
unreasonable :  "  What  are  the  constitutional  principles  re- 
maining in  force  where  the  whole  constitution  is  sus- 
pended? What  principle  of  the  British  constitution  holds 
good  in  a  country  where  the  people's  money  is  taken  from 
them  without  the  people's  consent;  where  representative 
government  is  annihilated;  where  martial  law  has  been 
the  law  of  the  land,  and  where  trial  by  jury  exists  only  to 
defeat  the  ends  of  justice,  and  to  provoke  the  righteous 
scorn  and  indignation  of  the  community?" 

Still  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  less  impetuous  and 
impatient  spirit  than  that  of  Lord  Durham  might  have 
found  a  way  of  beginning  his  great  reforms  without  pro- 
voking such  a  storm  of  hostile  criticism.  He  was,  it  must 
always  be  remembered,  a  dictator  who  only  strove  to  use 
his  powers  for  the  restoration  of  liberty  and  constitutional 
government.  His  mode  of  disposing  of  his  prisoners  was 
arbitrary  only  in  the  interests  of  mercy.  He  declared 
openly  that  he  did  not  think  it  right  to  send  to  an  ordinary 
penal  settlement,  and  thus  brand  with  infamy,  men  whom 
the  public  feeling  of  the  colony  entirely  approved,  and 
whose  cause,  until  they  broke  into  rebellion,  had  far  more 
of  right  on  its  side  than  that  of  the  authority  they  com- 
plained of  could  claim  to  possess.  He  sent  them  to  Ber- 
muda simply  as  into  exile;  to  remove  them  from  the 
colony,  but  nothing  more.  He  lent  the  weight  of  this 
authority  to  the  colonial  Act,  which  prescribed  the  penalty 
of  death  for  returning  to  the  colony,  because  he  believed 
that  the  men  thus  proscribed  never  would  return. 

But  his  policy  met  with  the  severest  and  most  unmeas- 
ured criticism  at  home.  If  Lord  Durham  had  been  guilty 
of  the  worst  excesses  of  power  which  Burke  charged 
against  Warren  Hastings,  he  could  not  have  been  more 
fiercely  denounced  in  the  House  of  Lords.  He  was  ac- 
cused of  having  promulgated  an  ordinance  which  would 
enable  him  to  hang  men  without  any  trial  or  form  of  trial. 
None  of  his  opponents  seemed  to  remember  that,  whether 


56  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

his  disposal  of  the  prisoners  was  right  or  wrong,  it  was 
only  a  small  and  incidental  part  of  a  great  policy  covering 
the  readjustment  of  the  whole  political  and  social  system 
of  a  splendid  colony.  The  criticism  went  on  as  if  the 
promulgation  of  the  Quebec  ordinances  was  the  be-all  and 
the  end-all  of  Lord  Durham's  mission.  His  opponents 
made  great  complaint  about  the  cost  of  his  progress  in 
Canada.  Lord  Durham  had  undoubtedly  a  lavish  taste  and 
love  for  something  like  Oriental  display.  He  made  his 
goings  about  in  Canada  like  a  gorgeous  royal  progress; 
yet  it  was  well  known  that  he  took  no  remuneration  what- 
ever for  himself,  and  did  not  even  accept  his  own  personal 
travelling  expenses.  He  afterward  stated  in  the  House  of 
Lords  that  the  visit  cost  him  personally  ten  thousand 
pounds  at  least.  Mr.  Hume,  the  advocate  of  economy, 
made  sarcastic  comment  on  the  sudden  fit  of  parsimony 
which  seemed  to  have  seized,  in  Lord  Durham's  case, 
men  whom  he  had  never  before  known  to  raise  their  voices 
against  any  prodigality  of  expenditure. 

The  ministry  was  very  weak  in  debating  power  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  Lord  Durham  had  made  enemies  there. 
The  opportunity  was  tempting  for  assailifig  him  and  the 
ministry  together.  Many  of  the  criticisms  were  undoubt- 
edly the  conscientious  protests  of  men  who  saw  danger  in 
any  departure  from  the  recognized  principles  of  constitu- 
tional law.  Eminent  judges  and  lawyers  in  the  House  of 
Lords  naturally  looked,  above  all  things,  to  the  proper 
administration  of  the  law  as  it  existed.  But  it  is  hard  to 
doubt  that  political  or  personal  enmity  influenced  some 
of  the  attacks  on  Lord  Durham's  conduct.  Almost  all 
the  leading  men  in  the  House  of  Lords  were  against  him. 
Lord  Brougham  and  Lord  Lyndhurst  were  for  the  time 
leagued  in  opposition  to  the  Government  and  in  attack  on 
the  Canadian  policy.  Lord  Brougham  claimed  to  be  con- 
sistent. He  had  opposed  the  Canada  coercion  from  the 
beginning,  he  said,  and  he  opposed  illegal  attempts  to 
deal  with  Canada  now.     It  seems  a  little  hard  to  under- 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham,  57 

stand  how  Lord  Brougham  could  really  have  so  far  mis- 
understood the  purpose  of  Lord  Durham's  proclamation 
as  to  believe  that  he  proposed  to  hang  men  without  the 
form  of  law.  However  Lord  Durham  may  have  broken 
the  technical  rules  of  law,  nothing  could  be  more  obvious 
than  the  fact  that  he  did  so  in  the  interest  of  mercy  and 
generosity,  and  not  that  of  tyrannical  severity.  Lord 
Brougham  inveighed  against  him  with  thundering  elo- 
quence, as  if  he  were  denouncing  another  Sejanus.  It 
must  be  owned  that  his  attacks  lost  some  of  their  moral 
effect  because  of  his  known  hatred  to  Lord  Melbourne  and 
the  ministry,  and  even  to  Lord  Durham  himself.  People 
said  that  Brougham  had  a  special  reason  for  feeling  hostile 
to  anything  done  by  Lord  Durham.  A  dinner  was  given 
to  Lord  Grey  by  the  Reformers  of  Edinburgh,  in  1834,  at 
which  Lord  Brougham  and  Lord  Durham  were  both  pres- 
ent. Brougham  was  called  upon  to  speak,  and  in  the 
course  of  his  speech  he  took  occasion  to  condemn  certain 
too-zealous  Reformers  who  could  not  be  content  with  the 
changes  that  had  been  made,  but  must  demand  that  the 
ministry  should  rush  forward  into  wild  and  extravagant 
enterprises.  He  enlarged  upon  this  subject  with  great 
vivacity  and  with  amusing  variety  of  humorous  and  rhetor- 
ical illustration.  Lord  Durham  assumed  that  the  attack 
was  intended  for  him.  His  assumption  was  not  unnatural. 
When  he  came  in  his  turn  to  speak,  he  was  indiscreet 
enough  to  reply  directly  to  Lord  Brougham,  to  accept  the 
speech  of  the  former  as  a  personal  challenge,  and  in  bitter 
words  to  retort  invective  and  sarcasm.  The  scene  was  not 
edifying.  The  guests  were  scandalized.  The  effect  of 
Brougham's  speech  was  wholly  spoiled.  Brougham  was 
made  to  seem  a  disturber  of  order  by  the  indiscretion 
which  provoked  into  retort  a  man  notoriously  indiscreet 
and  incapable  of  self-restraint.  It  is  not  unfair  to  the 
memory  of  so  fierce  and  unsparing  a  political  gladiator  as 
Lord  Brougham  to  assume  that  when  he  felt  called  upon 
to  attack  the  Canadian  policy  of  Lord  Durham,  the  recol- 


58  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

lection  of  the  scene  at  the  Edinburgh  dinner  inspired  with 
additional  force  his  criticism  of  the  Quebec  ordinances. 

The  ministry  were  weak,  and  yielded.  They  had  in  the 
first  instance  approved  of  the  ordinances,  but  they  quickly 
gave  way  and  abandoned  them.  They  avoided  a  direct  at- 
tempt on  the  part  of  Lord  Brougham  to  reverse  the  policy 
of  Lord  Durham  by  announcing  that  they  had  determined 
to  disallow  the  Quebec  ordinances.  Lord  Durham  learned 
for  the  first  time  from  an  American  paper  that  the  Govern- 
ment had  abandoned  him.  He  at  once  announced  his 
determination  to  give  up  his  position  and  to  return  to 
England.  His  letter  announcing  this  resolve  crossed  on 
the  ocean  the  dispatch  from  home  disallowing  his  ordi- 
nances. With  characteristic  imprudence,  he  issued  a  pro- 
clamation from  the  Castle  of  St,  Lewis,  in  the  city  of 
Quebec,  which  was  virtually  an  appeal  to  the  public  feeling 
of  the  colony  against  the  conduct  of  her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment. When  the  news  of  this  extraordinary  proclamation 
reached  home.  Lord  Durham  was  called  by  the  Times 
newspaper  "the  Lord  High  Seditioner."  The  representa- 
tive of  the  sovereign,  it  was  said,  had  appealed  to  the 
judgment  of  a  still  rebellious  colony  against  the  policy  of 
the  sovereign's  own  advisers.  Of  course  Lord  Durham's 
recall  was  imavoidable.  The  Government  once  sent  out  a 
dispatch  removing  him  from  his  place  as  Governor  of 
British  North  America. 

Lord  Durham  had  not  waited  for  the  formal  recall.  He 
returned  to  England  a  disgraced  man.  Yet  even  then 
there  was  public  spirit  enough  among  the  English  people 
to  refuse  to  ratify  any  sentence  of  disgrace  upon  him. 
When  he  landed  at  Plymouth  he  was  received  with  ac- 
clamations by  the  population,  although  the  Government 
had  prevented  any  of  the  official  honor  usually  shown  to 
returning  governors  from  being  offered  to  him.  Mr. 
John  »Stuart  Mill  has  claimed  with  modest  firmness  and 
with  perfect  justice  a  leading  share  in  influencing  public 
opinion  in  favor  of  Lord  Durham.     "Lord  Durham,"  ha 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  59 

says  in  his  autobiography,  "  was  bitterly  attacked  from  all 
sides,  inveighed  against  by  enemies,  given  up  by  timid 
friends;  while  those  who  would  willingly  have  defended 
him  did  not  know  what  to  say.  He  appeared  to  be  re- 
turning a  defeated  and  discredited  man.  I  had  followed 
the  Canadian  events  from  the  beginning;  I  had  been  one 
of  the  prompters  of  his  prompters ;  his  policy  was  almost 
exactly  what  mine  would  have  been,  and  I  was  in  a  posi- 
tion to  defend  it.  I  wrote  and  published  a  manifesto  in 
the  [Westminster]  Review,  in  which  I  took  the  very  high- 
est ground  in  his  behalf,  claiming  for  him  not  mere  ac- 
quittal, but  praise  and  honor.  Instantly  a  number  of 
other  writers  took  up  the  tone.  I  believe  there  was  a 
portion  of  truth  in  what  Lord  Durham  soon  after,  with 
polite  exaggeration,  said  to  me,  that  to  this  article  might  be 
ascribed  the  almost  triumphal  reception  which  he  met  with 
on  his  arrival  in  England.  I  believe  it  to  have  been  the 
word  in  season  which  at  a  critical  moment  does  much  to 
decide  the  result;  the  touch  which  determines  whether  a 
stone  set  in  motion  at  the  top  of  an  eminence  shall  roll 
down  on  one  side  or  on  the  other.  All  hopes  connected 
with  Lord  Durham  as  a  politician  soon  vanished;  but  with 
regard  to  Canadian  and  generally  to  colonial  policy  the 
cause  was  gained.  Lord  Durham's  report,  written  by 
.  Charles  Buller,  partly  under  the  inspiration  of  Wakefield, 
..  began  a  new  era;  its  recommendations,  extending  to  com- 
r  plete  internal  self-government,  were  in  full  operation  in 
Canada  within  two  or  three  years,  and  have  been  since 
extended  to  nearly  all  the  other  colonies  of  European  race 
which  have  any  claim  to  the  character  of  important  com- 
munities." In  this  instance  the  vida  cmisa  pleased  not 
only  Cato,  but,  in  the  end,  the  gods  as  well. 

Lord  Durham's  report  was  acknowledged  by  enemies  as 
well  as  by  the  most  impartial  critics  to  be  a  masterly 
document.  As  Mr,  Mill  has  said,  it  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  political  success  and  social  prosperity  not  only  of 
Canada,  but  of  all  the  other  important  colonies.     After 


6o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

having  explained  in  the  most  exhaustive  manner  the 
causes  of  discontent  and  backwardness  in  Canada,  it  went 
on  to  recommend  that  the  government  of  the  colony  should 
be  put  as  much  as  possible  into  the  hands  of  the  colonists 
themselves,  that  they  themselves  should  execute  as  well  as 
make  the  laws,  the  limit  of  the  Imperial  Government's 
interference  being  in  such  matters  as  affect  the  relations 
of  the  colony  with  the  mother-country,  such  as  the  consti- 
tution and  form  of  government,  the  regulation  of  foreign 
relations  and  trade,  and  the  disposal  of  the  public  lands. 
Lord  Durham  proposed  to  establish  a  thoroughly  good 
system  of  municipal  institutions;  to  secure  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  judges;  to  make  all  provincial  officers,  except 
the  governor  and  his  secretary,  responsible  to  the  colonial 
legislature;  and  to  repeal  all  former  legislation  with  re- 
spect to  the  reserves  of  land  for  the  clergy.  Finally,  he 
proposed  that  the  provinces  of  Canada  should  be  reunited 
politically  and  should  become  one  legislature,  containing 
the  representatives  of  both  races  and  of  all  districts.  It 
is  significant  that  the  report  also  recommended  that  in  any 
act  to  be  introduced  for  this  purpose,  a  provision  should 
be  made  by  which  all  or  any  of  the  other  North  American 
colonies  should,  on  the  application  of  their  legislatures 
and  with  the  consent  of  Canada,  be  admitted  into  the  Cana- 
dian Union.  Thus  the  separation  which  Fox  thought  un- 
wise was  to  be  abolished,  and  the  Canadas  were  to  be 
fused  into  one  system,  which  Lord  Durham  would  have 
had  a  federation.  In  brief.  Lord  Durham  proposed  to 
make  the  Canadas  self-governing  as  regards  their  internal 
affairs,  and  the  germ  of  a  federal  rmion.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  describe  in  detail  the  steps  by  which  the  Govern- 
ment gradually  introduced  the  recommendations  of  Lord 
Durham  to  Parliament  and  carried  them  to  success.  Lord 
Glenelg,  one  of  the  feeblest  and  most  apathetic  of  colonial 
secretaries,  had  retired  from  office,  partly,  no  doubt,  be- 
cause of  the  attacks  in  Parliament  on  his  administration 
of  Canadian   affairs.      He  was  succeeded  at  the  Colonial 


Canada  and  Lord  Durham.  6\ 

Office  by  Lord  Normanby,  and  Lord  Normanby  gave  way 
in  a  few  months  to  Lord  John  Russell,  who  was  full  of 
energy  and  earnestness.  Lord  Durham's  successor  and 
disciple  in  the  work  of  Canadian  government,  Lord  Syden- 
ham— best  known  as  Mr.  Charles  Poulett  Thomson,  one  of 
the  pioneers  of  free-trade — received  Lord  John  Russell's 
cordial  co-operation  and  support.  Lord  John  Russell  in- 
troduced into  the  House  of  Commons  a  bill  which  he  de- 
scribed as  intended  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  permanent 
settlement  of  the  affairs  of  Canada.  The  measure  was 
postponed  for  a  session  because  some  statesmen  thought 
that  it  would  not  be  acceptable  to  the  Canadians  them- 
selves. Some  little  sputterings  of  the  rebellion  had  also 
lingered  after  Lord  Durham's  return  to  this  country,  and 
these  for  a  short  time  had  directed  attention  away  from 
the  policy  of  reorganization.  In  1840,  however,  the  Act 
was  passed  which  reunited  Upper  and  Lower  Canada  on 
the  basis  proposed  by  Lord  Durham.  Further  legislation 
disposed  of  the  clergy  reserve  lands  for  the  general  bene- 
fit of  all  churches  and  denominations.  The  way  was  made 
clear  for  that  scheme  which  in  times  nearer  to  our  own  has 
formed  the  Dominion  of  Canada. 

Lord  Durham  did  not  live  to  see  the  success  of  the  pol- 
icy he  had  recommended.  We  may  anticipate  the  close  of 
his  career.  Within  a  few  days  after  the  passing  of  the 
Canada  Government  Bill  he  died  at  Cowes,  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  on  July  28th,  1840.  He  was  then  little  more  than 
forty-eight  years  of  age.  He  had  for  some  time  been  in 
failing  health,  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  mortifi- 
cation attending  his  Canadian  mission  had  worn  away  his 
strength.  His  proud  and  sensitive  spirit  could  ill  bear 
the  contradictions  and  humiliations  that  had  been  forced 
upon  him.  His  was  an  eager  and  a  passionate  nature, 
full  of  that  sceva  indigfiafio  which,  by  his  own  acknowledg- 
ment, tortured  the  heart  of  Swift.  He  wanted  to  the  suc- 
cess of  his  political  career  that  proud  patience  which  the 
gods  are  said  to  love,  and  by  virtue  of  which  great  men 


62  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times* 

live  down  misappreciation,  and  hold  out  until  they  see 
themselves  justified  and  hear  the  reproaches  turn  into 
cheers.  But  if  Lord  Durham's  personal  career  was  in  any- 
way a  failure,  his  policy  for  the  Canadas  was  a  splendid 
success.  It  established  the  principles  of  colonial  govern- 
ment. There  were  undoubtedly  defects  in  the  construction 
of  the  actual  scheme  which  Lord  Durham  initiated,  and 
which  Lord  Sydenham,  who  died  not  long  after  him,  in- 
stituted. The  legislative  union  of  the  two  Canadas  was 
in  itself  a  makeshift,  and  was  only  adopted  as  such.  Lord 
Durham  would  have  had  it  otherwise  if  he  might;  but  he 
did  not  see  his  way  then  to  anything  like  the  complete 
federation  scheme  afterward  adopted.  But  the  success  of 
the  policy  lay  in  the  broad  principles  it  established,  and  to 
which  other  colonial  systems  as  well  as  that  of  the  Domin- 
ion of  Canada  owe  their  strength  and  security  to-day. 
One  may  say,  with  little  help  from  the  merely  fanciful, 
that  the  rejoicings  of  emancipated  colonies  might  have 
been  in  his  dying  ears  as  he  sank  into  his  early  grave. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SCIENCE    AND    SPEED. 

The  opening  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  coincided 
with  the  introduction  of  many  of  the  great  discoveries 
and  applications  in  science,  industry,  and  commerce  which 
we  consider  specially  representative  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion. A  reign  which  saw  in  its  earlier  years  the  applica- 
tion of  the  electric  current  to  the  task  of  transmitting 
messages,  the  first  successful  attempts  to  make  use  of  steam 
for  the  business  of  transatlantic  navigation,  the  general 
development  of  the  railway  system  all  over  these  countries, 
and  in  the  introduction  of  the  penny-post,  must  be  consid- 
ered to  have  obtained  for  itself,  had  it  secured  no  other 
memorials,  an  abiding  place  in  history.  A  distinguished 
author  has  lately  inveighed  against  the  spirit  which  would 
rank  such  improvements  as  those  just  mentioned  with  the 
genuine  triumphs  of  the  human  race,  and  has  gone  so  far 
as  to  insist  that  there  is  nothing  in  any  such  which  might 
not  be  expected  from  the  self-interested  contrivings  of 
a  very  inferior  animal  nature.  Amid  the  tendency  to 
glorify  beyond  measure  the  mere  mechanical  improve- 
ments of  modern  civilization,  it  is  natural  that  there  should 
arise  some  angry  questioning,  some  fierce  disparagement 
of  all  that  it  has  done.  There  will  always  be  natures  to 
which  the  philosophy  of  contemplation  must  seem  far 
nobler  than  the  philosophy  which  expresses  itself  in 
mechanical  action.  It  may,  however,  be  taken  as  certain 
that  no  people  who  were  ever  great  in  thought  and  in  art 
wilfully  neglected  to  avail  themselves  of  all  possible  con- 
trivances for  making  life  less  laborious  by  the  means  of 
mechanical  and  artificial  contrivance.     The  Greeks  were, 


64  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

to  the  best  of  their  opportunity,  and  when  at  the  highest 
point  of  their  glory  as  an  artistic  race,  as  eager  for  the 
application  of  all  scientific  and  mechanical  contrivances 
to  the  business  of  life  as  the  most  practical  and  boastful 
Tilanchester  man  or  Chicago  man  of  our  own  day.  We 
shall  afterward  see  that  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  came 
to  have  a  literature,  an  art,  and  a  philosophy  distinctly 
its  own.  For  the  mornent  we  have  to  do  with  its  industrial 
science ;  or,  at  least,  with  the  first  remarkable  movements 
in  that  direction  which  accompanied  the  opening  of  the 
reign.  This  at  least  must  be  said  for  them,  that  they 
have  changed  the  conditions  of  human  life  for  us  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  make  the  history  of  the  past  forty  or  fift)'' 
years  almost  absolutely  distinct  from  thatof  any  preceding 
period.  In  all  that  part  of  our  social  life  which  is  affected 
by  industrial  and  mechanical  appliances,  the  man  of  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  less  widely  re- 
moved from  the  Englishman  of  the  days  of  the  Paston 
Letters  than  we  are  removed  from  the  ways  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  man  of  the  eighteenth  century  trav- 
elled on  land  and  sea  in  much  the  same  way  that  his 
forefathers  had  done  hundreds  of  years  before.  His  com- 
munications by  letter  with  his  fellows  were  carried  on 
in  very  much  the  same  method.  He  got  his  news  from 
abroad  and  at  home  after  the  same  slow,  uncertain 
fashion.  His  streets  and  houses  were  lighted  very  much 
as  they  might  have  been  when  Mr.  Pepys  was  in  London. 
His  ideas  of  drainage  and  ventilation  were  equally  ele- 
mentary and  simple.  We  see  a  complete  revolution  in  all 
these  things.  A  man  of  the  present  day  suddenly  thrust 
back  fifty  years  in  life  would  find  himself  almost  as  awk- 
wardly unsuited  to  the  ways  of  that  time  as  if  he  were  sent 
back  to  the  age  when  the  Romans  occupied  Britain.  He 
would  find  himself  harassed  at  every  step  he  took.  He 
could  do  hardly  anything  as  he  does  it  to-day.  What- 
ever the  moral  and  philosophical  value  of  the  change  in  the 
eyes  of  thinkers  too  lofty  to  concern  themselves  with  the 


Science  and  Speed.  65 

common  ways  and  doings  of  human  life,  this  is  certain  at 
least,  that  the  change  is  of  immense  historical  importance ; 
and  that  even  if  we  look  upon  life  as  a  mere  pageant  and 
show,  interesting  to  wise  men  only  by  its  curious  changes, 
a  wise  man  of  this  school  could  hardly  have  done  better, 
if  the  choice  lay  with  him,  than  to  desire  that  the  lines  of 
his  life  might  be  so  cast  as  to  fall  into  the  earlier  part  of 
this  present  reign. 

It  is  a  somewhat  curious  coincidence  that  in  the  year 
when  Professor  Wheatstone  and  Mr.  Cooke  took  out  their 
first  patent "  for  improvements  in  giving  signals  and  sound- 
ing alarms  in  distant  places  by  means  of  electric  currents 
transmitted  through  metallic  circuit,"  Professor  Morse, 
the  American  electrician,  applied  to  Congress  for  aid  in 
the  construction  and  carrying  on  of  a  small  electric  tele- 
graph to  convey  messages  a  short  distance,  and  made  the 
application  without  success.  In  the  following  year  he 
came  to  this  country  to  obtain  a  patent  for  his  invention ; 
but  he  was  refused.  He  had  come  too  late.  Our  own 
countrymen  were  beforehand  with  him.  Very  soon  after 
we  find  experiments  made  with  the  electric  telegraph  be- 
tween Euston  Square  and  Camden  Town.  These  experi- 
ments were  made  under  the  authority  of  the  London  and 
Northwestern  Railway  Company,  immediately  on  the 
taking  out  of  the  patent  by  Messrs.  Wheatstone  and  Cooke. 
Mr.  Robert  Stephenson  was  one  of  those  who  came  to  watch 
the  operation  of  this  new  and  wonderful  attempt  to  make 
the  currents  of  the  air  man's  faithful  Ariel.  The  London 
and  Birmingham  Railway  was  opened  through  its  whole 
length  in  1838.  The  Liverpool  and  Preston  line  was 
opened  in  the  same  year.  The  Liverpool  and  Birmingham 
had  been  opened  in  the  year  before;  the  London  and 
Croydon  was  opened  the  year  after.  The  Act  for  the 
transmission  of  the  mails  by  railways  was  passed  in  1838. 
In  the  same  year  it  was  noted  as  an  unparalleled,  and  to 
many  an  almost  incredible,  triumph  of  human  energy 
and  science  over  time  and  space  that  a  locomotive  had 
Vol.  I.— 5 


66  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

been  able  to  travel  at  a  speed  of  thirty-seven  miles  an 
hour. 

"  The  prospect  of  travelling  from  the  metropolis  to  Liv- 
erpool, a  distance  of  two  hundred  and  ten  miles,  in  ten 
hours,  calls  forcibly  to  mind  the  tales  of  fairies  and  genii 
by  which  we  were  amused  in  our  youth,  and  contrasts 
forcibly  with  the  fact,  attested  on  the  personal  experience 
of  the  writer  of  this  notice,  that  about  the  commencement 
of  the  present  century  this  same  journey  occupied  a  space 
of  sixty  hours,"  These  are  the  words  of  a  writer  who 
gives  an  interesting  account  of  the  railways  of  England 
during  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  In 
the  same  volume  from  which  this  extract  is  taken  an  al- 
lusion is  made  to  the  possibility  of  steam  communication 
being  successfully  established  between  England  and  the 
United  States.  "Preparations  on  a  gigantic  scale,"  a 
writer  is  able  to  announce,  "  are  now  in  a  state  of  great 
forwardness  for  trying  an  experiment  in  steam  navigation 
which  has  been  the  subject  of  much  controversy  among 
scientific  men.  Ships  of  an  enormous  size,  furnished  with 
steam-power  equal  to  the  force  of  four  hundred  horses  and 
upward,  will,  before  our  next  volume  shall  be  prepared, 
have  probably  decided  the  question  whether  this  descrip- 
tion of  vessels  can,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge, 
profitably  engage  in  transatlantic  voyages.  It  is  possible 
that  these  attempts  may  fail — a  result  which  is,  indeed, 
predicted  by  high  authorities  on  this  subject.  We  are 
more  sanguine  in  our  hopes;  but  should  these  be  disap- 
pointed, we  cannot,  if  we  are  to  judge  from  our  past  pro- 
gress, doubt  that  longer  experience  and  a  further  applica- 
tion of  inventive  genius  will,  at  no  very  distant  day, 
render  practicable  and  profitable  by  this  means  the  longest 
voyages  in  which  the  adventurous  spirit  of  man  will  lead 
him  to  embark."  The  experiment  thus  alluded  to  was 
made  with  perfect  success.  The  Sirius^  the  Great  Western, 
and  the  Royal  William  accomplished  voyages  between  New 
York  and  this  country  in  the  early  part  of  1838;  and  it 


!  Science  and  Speed.  67 

was  remarked  that  "  Transatlantic  voyages  by  means  of 
steam  may  now  be  said  to  be  as  easy  of  accomplishment, 
with  ships  of  adequate  size  and  power,  as  the  passage  be- 
tween London  and  Margate."  The  Great  Western  crossed 
the  ocean  from  Bristol  to  New  York  in  fifteen  days.  She 
was  followed  by  the  Sirius,  which  left  Cork  for  New  York, 
and  made  the  passage  in  seventeen  days.  The  controversy 
as  to  the  possibility  of  such  voyages,  which  was  settled 
by  the  Great  Western  and  the  Sirius^  had  no  reference  to  the 
actual  safety  of  such  an  experiment.  During  seven  years 
the  mails  for  the  Mediterranean  had  been  dispatched  by 
means  of  steamers.  The  doubt  was  as  to  the  possibility 
of  stowing  in  a  vessel  so  large  a  quantity  of  coal  or  other 
fuel  as  would  enable  her  to  accomplish  her  voyage  across 
the  Atlantic,  where  there  could  be  no  stopping-place  and 
no  possibility  of  taking  in  new  stores.  It  was  found,  to  the 
delight  of  all  those  who  believed  in  the  practicability  of 
the  enterprise,  that  the  quantity  of  fuel  which  each  vessel 
had  on  board  when  she  left  her  port  of  departure  proved 
amply  sufficient  for  the  completion  of  the  voyage.  Neither 
the  Sirius  nor  the  Great  Western  was  the  first  vessel  to  cross 
the  Atlantic  by  means  of  steam  propulsion.  Nearly  twenty 
years  before,  a  vessel  called  the  Savannah,  built  at  New 
York,  crossed  the  ocean  to  Liverpool ;  and  some  years  later 
an  English -built  steamer  made  several  voyages  between 
Holland  and  the  Dutch  West  Indian  colonies  as  a  packet 
vessel  in  the  service  of  that  Government.  Indeed,  a  voy- 
age had  been  made  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  more 
lately  still  by  a  steamship.  These  expeditions,  however, 
had  really  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  problem  which 
was  solved  by  the  voyages  of  the  Sirius  and  the  Great 
Western.  In  the  former  instances  the  steam-power  was 
employed  merely  as  an  auxiliary.  The  vessel  made  as 
much  use  of  her  steam  propulsion  as  she  could,  but  she 
had  to  rely  a  good  deal  on  her  capacity  as  a  sailer.  This 
was  quite  a  different  thing  from  the  enterprise  of  the  Sirius 
and  the  Great  Western,  which  was  to  cross  the  ocean  by 


68  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

steam  propulsion,  and  steam  propulsion  only.  It  is  evi- 
dent that,  so  long  as  the  steam-power  was  to  be  used  only 
as  an  auxiliary,  it  would  be  impossible  to  reckon  on  speed 
and  certainty  of  arrival.  The  doubt  was  whether  a 
steamer  could  carry,  with  her  cargo  and  passengers,  fuel 
enough  to  serve  for  the  whole  of  her  voyage  across  the 
Atlantic.  The  expeditions  of  the  Sirius  and  the  Great 
Western  settled  the  whole  question.  It  was  never  again  a 
matter  of  controversy.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  two  years 
after  the  Great  IFestern  went  out  from  Bristol  to  New  York 
the  Cunard  line  of  steamers  was  established.  The  steam 
commimication  between  Liverpool  and  New  York  became 
thenceforth  as  regular  and  as  unvarying  a  part  of  the 
business  of  commerce  as  the  journeys  of  the  trains  on  the 
Great  Western  Railway  between  London  and  Bristol.  It 
was  not  Bristol  which  benefited  most  by  the  transatlantic 
voyages.  They  made  the  greatness  of  Liverpool.  Year 
by  year  the  sceptre  of  the  commercial  marine  passed  away 
from  Bristol  to  Liverpool.  No  port  in  the  world  can  show 
a  line  of  docks  like  those  of  Liverpool.  There  the  statel)' 
Mersey  flows  for  miles  between  the  superb  and  massive 
granite  walls  of  the  enclosures  within  whose  shelter  the 
ships  of  the  world  are  arrayed,  as  if  on  parade,  for  the 
admiration  of  the  traveller  who  has  hitherto  been  accus- 
tomed to  the  irregular  and  straggling  arrangements  of  the 
docks  of  London  or  of  New  York. 

On  July  5th,  1839,  an  unusually  late  period  of  the  year, 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  brought  forward  his 
annual  budget.  The  most  important  part  of  the  financial 
statement,  so  far  as  later  times  are  concerned,  is  set  out 
in  a  resolution  proposed  by  the  finance  minister,  which, 
perhaps,  presents  the  greatest  social  improvement  brought 
about  by  legislation  in  modern  times.  The  Chancellor 
proposed  a  resolution  declaring  that  "  it  is  expedient  to 
reduce  the  postage  on  letters  to  one  uniform  rate  of  one 
penny  charged  upon  every  letter  of  a  weight  to  be  hereafter 
fixed  by  law ;  Parliamentary  privileges  of  franking  being 


Science  and  Speed.  69 

abolished  and  official  franking  strictly  regulated;  this 
House  pledging  itself  at  the  same  time  to  make  good  any 
deficiency  of  revenue  which  may  be  occasioned  by  such  an 
alteration  in  the  rates  of  the  existing  duties."  Up  to  this 
time  the  rates  of  postage  had  been  both  high  and  various. 
They  were  varying  both  as  to  distance  and  as  to  the  weight 
and  even  the  size  or  the  shape  of  a  letter.  The  district  or 
London  post  was  a  separate  branch  of  the  postal  depart- 
ment ;  and  the  charge  for  the  transmission  of  letters  was 
made  on  a  different  scale  in  London  from  that  which  pre- 
vailed between  town  and  town.  The  average  postage  on 
every  chargeable  letter  throughout  the  United  Kingdom 
was  sixpence  farthing.  A  letter  from  London  to  Brighton 
cost  eightpence;  to  Aberdeen  one  shilling  and  threepence 
halfpenny;  to  Belfast  one  shilling  and  fourpence.  Nor 
was  this  all;  for  if  the  letter  were  written  on  more  than 
one  sheet  of  paper,  it  came  under  the  operation  of  a  higher 
scale  of  charge.  Members  of  Parliament  had  the  privilege 
of  franking  letters  to  a  certain  limited  extent ;  members 
of  the  Government  had  the  privilege  of  franking  to  an 
vmlimited  extent.  It  is,  perhaps,  as  well  to  mention,  for 
the  sake  of  being  intelligible  to  all  readers  in  an  age  which 
has  not,  in  this  country  at  least,  known  practically  the 
beauty  and  liberality  of  the  franking  privilege,  that  it 
consisted  in  the  right  of  the  privileged  person  to  send  his 
own  or  any  other  person's  letters  through  the  post  free  of 
charge  by  merely  writing  his  name  on  the  outside.  This 
meant,  in  plain  words,  that  the  letters  of  the  class  who 
could  best  afford  to  pay  for  them  went  free  of  charge,  and 
that  those  who  could  least  afford  to  pay  had  to  pay  double 
— the  expense,  that  is  to  say,  of  carrying  their  own  letters 
and  the  letters  of  the  privileged  and  exempt. 

The  greatest  grievances  were  felt  everywhere  because 
of  this  absurd  system.  It  had  along  with  its  other  disad- 
vantages that  of  encouraging  what  may  be  called  the 
smuggling  of  letters.  Everywhere  sprang  up  organiza- 
tions for  the  illicit  conveyance  of  correspondence  at  lower 


7©  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

rates  than  those  imposed  by  the  Government.  The  pro- 
prietors of  almost  every  kind  of  public  conveyance  are  said 
to  have  been  engaged  in  this  unlawful  but  certainly  not 
very  unnatural  or  unjustifiable  traffic.  Five-sixths  of  all 
the  letters  sent  between  Manchester  and  London  were  said 
to  have  been  conveyed  for  years  by  this  process.  One 
great  mercantile  house  was  proved  to  have  been  in  the 
habit  of  sending  sixty-seven  letters  by  what  we  may  call 
this  underground  post-office  for  every  one  on  which  they 
paid  the  Government  charges.  It  was  not  merely  to  escape 
heavy  cost  that  these  stratagems  were  employed.  As 
there  was  an  additional  charge  when  a  letter  was  written 
on  more  sheets  than  one,  there  was  a  frequent  and  almost 
a  constant  tampering  by  officials  with  the  sanctity  of  sealed 
letters  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  or  not  they 
ought  to  be  taxed  on  the  higher  scale.  It  was  proved  that 
in  the  years  between  1815  and  1835,  while  the  population 
had  increased  thirty  per  cent,  and  the  stage-coach  duty 
had  increased  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  per  cent,  the 
Post-office  revenues  had  shown  no  increase  at  all.  In 
other  coimtries  the  postal  revenue  had  been  on  the  increase 
steadily  during  that  time;  in  the  United  States  the  revenue 
had  actually  trebled,  although  then  and  later  the  postal 
system  of  America  was  full  of  faults  which  at  that  day 
only  seemed  intelligible  or  excusable  when  placed  in  com- 
parison with  those  of  our  own  system. 

Mr.  (afterward  Sir  Rowland)  Hill  is  the  man  to  whom 
this  country,  and,  indeed,  all  civilization,  owes  the  adop- 
tion of  the  cheap  and  uniform  system.  His  plan  has  been 
adopted  by  every  State  which  professes  to  have  a  postal 
system  at  all.  Mr.  Hill  belonged  to  a  remarkable  family. 
His  father,  Thomas  Wright  Hill,  was  a  teacher,  a  man  of 
advanced  and  practical  views  in  popular  education,  a  de- 
voted lover  of  science,  an  advocate  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  and  a  sort  of  celebrity  in  the  Birmingham  of  his 
day,  where  he  took  a  bold  and  active  part  in  trying  to  de- 
fend the   house   of  Dr.    Priestley  against  the  mob  who 


Science  and  Speed.  71 

attacked  it.  He  had  five  sons,  every  one  of  whom  made 
himself  more  or  less  conspicuous  as  a  practical  reformer 
in  one  path  or  another.  The  eldest  of  the  sons  was 
Matthew  Davenport  Hill,  the  philanthropic  recorder  of 
Birmingham,  who  did  so  much  for  prison  reform  and  for 
the  reclamation  of  juvenile  offenders.  The  third  son  was 
Rowland  Hill,  the  author  of  the  cheap  postal  system. 
Rowland  Hill  when  a  little  weakly  child  began  to  show 
some  such  precocious  love  for  arithmetical  calculations  as 
Pascal  showed  for  mathematics.  His  favorite  amusement, 
as  a  child,  was  to  lie  on  the  hearth-rug  and  count  up  figures 
by  the  hour  together.  As  he  grew  up  he  became  teacher 
of  mathematics  in  his  father's  school.  Afterward  he  was 
appointed  Secretary  to  the  South  Australian  Commission, 
and  rendered  much  valuable  service  in  the  organization  of 
the  colony  of  South  Australia.  His  early  love  of  masses 
of  figures  it  may  have  been  which  in  the  first  instance 
turned  his  attention  to  the  number  of  letters  passing 
through  the  Post-office,  the  proportion  they  bore  to  the 
number  of  the  population,  the  cost  of  carrying  them,  and 
the  amount  which  the  Post-office  authorities  charged  for 
the  conveyance  of  a  single  letter.  A  picturesque  and 
touching  little  illustration  of  the  veritable  hardships  of  the 
existing  sy.stem  seems  to  have  quickened  his  interest  in  a 
reform  of  it.      Miss  Martineau  thus  tells  the  story: 

"  Coleridge,  when  a  young  man,  was  walking  through 
the  Lake  district,  when  he  one  day  saw  the  postman  de- 
liver a  letter  to  a  woman  at  a  cottage  door.  The  woman 
turned  it  over  and  examined  it,  and  then  returned  it,  sa)'- 
ing  she  could  not  pay  the  postage,  which  was  a  shilling. 
Hearing  that  the  letter  was  from  her  brother,  Coleridge 
paid  the  postage,  in  spite  of  the  manifest  unwillingness  of 
the  woman.  As  soon  as  the  postman  was  out  of  sight  she 
showed  Coleridge  how  his  money  had  been  wasted  as  far 
as  she  was  concerned.  The  sheet  was  blank.  There  was 
an  agreement  between  her  brother  and  herself  that  as  long 
as  all  went  well  with  him  he  should  send  a  blank  sheet  in 


^2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

this  way  once  a  quarter;  and  she  thus  had  tidings  of  him 
without  expense  of  postage.  Most  persons  would  have 
remembered  this  incident  as  a  curious  story  to  tell ;  but 
there  was  one  mind  which  wakened  up  at  once  to  a  sense 
of  the  significance  of  the  fact.  It  struck  Mr.  Rowland 
Hill  that  there  must  be  something  wrong  in  a  system 
which  drove  a  brother  and  sister  to  cheating,  in  order  to 
gratify  their  desire  to  hear  of  one  another's  welfare." 

Mr.  Hill  gradually  worked  out  for  himself  a  compre- 
hensive scheme  of  reform.  He  put  it  before  the  world 
early  in  1837.  The  public  were  taken  by  surprise  when 
the  plan  came  before  them  in  the  shape  of  a  pamphlet, 
which  its  author  modestly  entitled  "  Post-office  Reform : 
Its  Importance  and  Practicability. "  The  root  of  Mr.  Hill's 
system  lay  in  the  fact,  made  evident  by  him  beyond  dis- 
pute, that  the  actual  cost  of  the  conveyance  of  letters 
through  the  post  was  very  trifling,  and  was  but  little  in- 
creased by  the  distance  over  which  they  had  to  be  carried. 

His  proposal  was,  therefore,  that  the  rates  of  postage 
should  be  diminished  to  the  minimum ;  that  at  the  same 
time  the  speed  of  conveyance  should  be  increased,  and  that 
there  should  be  much  greater  frequency  of  dispatch.  His 
principle  was,  in  fact,  the  very  opposite  of  that  which  had 
prevailed  in  the  calculations  of  the  authorities.  Their 
idea  was  that  the  higher  the  charge  for  letters  the  greater 
the  return  to  the  revenue.  He  started  on  the  assumption 
that  the  smaller  the  charge  the  greater  the  profit.  He, 
therefore,  recommended  the  substitution  of  one  uniform 
charge  of  one  penny  the  half-ounce,  without  reference  to 
the  distance  within  the  limits  of  the  United  Kingdom 
which  the  letter  had  to  be  carried.  The  Post-office  author- 
ities were  at  first  uncompromising  in  their  opposition  to 
the  scheme.  The  Postmaster-general,  Lord  Lichfield, 
said  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  of  all  the  wild  and  extrav- 
agant schemes  he  had  ever  heard  of,  it  was  the  wildest 
and  most  extravagant.  "The  mails,"  he  said,  "will  have 
to  carry  twelve  times  as  much  weight,  and  therefore  the 


Science  and  Speed.  73 

charge  for  transmission,  instead  of  ^100,000,  as  now,  must 
be  twelve  times  that  amount.      The    walls  of  the   Post- 
office  would  burst ;  the  whole  area  in  which  the  building- 
stands  would  not  be  large  enough  to  receive  the  clerks 
and  the  letters."     It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  by  the 
paradoxical   peculiarity  of  this  argument.     Because   the 
change  would  be  so  much  welcomed  by  the  public.  Lord 
Lichfield  argued  that  it  ought  not  to  be  made.     He  did  not 
fall  back  upon  the  then  familiar  assertion  that  the  public 
would  not  send  anything  like  the  number  of  letters  the 
advocates  of  the  scheme  expected.     He  argued  that  they 
would  send  so  many  as  to  make  it  troublesome  for  the 
Post-office  authorities  to  deal  with  them.      In  plain  words, 
it  would  be  such  an  immense  accommodation  to  the  popu- 
lation in  general  that  the  officials  could  not  undertake  the 
trouble  of  carrying  it  into   effect.      Another    Post-office 
official.  Colonel  Maberley,  was,  at  all  events,  more  liberal. 
"My   constant    language,"    he    said   afterward,    "to   the 
heads  of  the  departments  was — This  plan  we  know  will 
fail.      It  is  our  duty  to  take  care  that  no  obstruction  is 
placed  in  the  way  of  it  by  the  heads  of  the  departments, 
and  by  the  Post-office.     The  allegation,   I  have  not  the 
least  doubt,  will  be  made  at  a  subsequent  period,  that  this 
plan  has  failed  in  consequence  of  the  unwillingness  of  the 
Government  to  carry  it  into  fair  execution.     It  is  our  duty, 
as  servants  of  the  Government,  to  take  care  that  no  blame 
eventually  shall  fall  on  the  Government  through  any  un- 
willingness of  ours  to  carry  it  into  proper  effect."     It  is, 
perhaps,  less  surprising  that  the  routine  mind  of  officials 
should  have  seen  no  future  but  failure  for  the  scheme, 
when  so  vigorous  and  untrammelled  a  thinker  as  Sydney 
Smith  spoke  with  anger  and  contempt  of  the  fact  that  "  a 
million  of  revenue  is  given  up  in  the  nonsensical  Penny- 
post  scheme,  to  please  my  old,  excellent,  and  universally 
dissentient    friend,    Noah  Warburton."      Mr.    Warburton 
was  then  member  for  Bridport,  and,  with  Mr.   Wallace, 
another  member  of  Parliament,  was  very  active  in  sup- 


74  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

porting  and  promoting  the  views  of  Mr.  Hill.  "  I  admire 
the  Whig  Ministry,"  Sydney  Smith  went  on  to  say,  "and 
think  they  have  done  more  good  things  than  all  the  min- 
istries since  the  Revolution ;  but  these  concessions  are  sad 
and  unworthy  marks  of  weakness,  and  fill  reasonable  men 
with  alarm." 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  remark  alone  that  the  ministry 
had  yielded  somewhat  more  readily  than  might  have  been 
expected  to  the  arguments  of  Mr.  Hill.  At  the  time  his 
pamphlet  appeared  a  commission  was  actually  engaged  in 
inquiring  into  the  condition  of  the  Post-office  department. 
Their  attention  was  drawn  to  Mr.  Hill's  plan,  and  they 
gave  it  a  careful  consideration,  and  reported  in  its  favor, 
although  the  Post-office  authorities  were  convinced  that  it 
must  involve  an  unbearable  loss  of  revenue.  In  Parliament 
Mr.  Wallace,  whose  name  has  been  already  mentioned, 
moved  for  a  committee  to  inquire  into  the  whole  subject, 
and  especially  to  examine  the  mode  recommended  for 
charging  and  collecting  postage  in  the  pamphlet  of  Mr. 
Hill.  The  committee  gave  the  subject  a  very  patient 
consideration,  and  at  length  made  a  report  recommending 
uniform  charges  and  prepayment  by  stamps.  That  part 
of  Mr.  Hill's  plan  which  suggested  the  use  of  postage- 
stamps  was  adopted  by  him  on  the  advice  of  Mr.  Charles 
Knight.  The  Government  took  up  the  scheme  with  some 
spirit  and  liberality.  The  revenue  that  year  showed  a 
deficiency,  but  they  determined  to  run  the  further  risk 
which  the  proposal  involved.  The  commercial  commu- 
nity had  naturally  been  stirred  greatly  by  the  project  which 
promised  so  much  relief  and  advantage.  Sydney  Smith 
was  very  much  mistaken,  indeed,  when  he  fancied  that  it 
was  only  to  please  his  old  and  excellent  friend,  Mr. 
Warburton,  that  the  Ministry  gave  way  to  the  innovation. 
Petitions  from  all  the  commercial  communities  were  pour- 
ing in  to  support  the  plan,  and  to  ask  that  at  least  it  should 
have  a  fair  trial.  The  Government  at  length  determined  to 
bring  in  a  bill  which  should  provide  for  the  almost  immedi- 


Science  and  Speed.  75 

ate  introduction  of  Mr.  Hill's  scheme,  and  for  the  abolition 
of  the  franking  system  except  in  the  case  of  official  letters 
actually  sent  on  business  directly  belonging  to  her  Majes- 
ty's service.  The  bill  declared,  as  an  introductory  step,  that 
the  charge  for  postage  should  be  at  the  rate  of  fourpence 
for  each  letter  under  half  an  ounce  in  weight,  irrespective 
of  distance,  within  the  limits  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
This,  however,  was  to  be  only  a  beginning;  for  on  January 
loth,  1840,  the  postage  was  fixed  at  the  uniform  rate  of 
one  penny  per  letter  of  not  more  than  half  an  ounce  in 
weight.  The  introductory  measure  was  not,  of  course, 
carried  without  opposition  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament. 
The  Duke  of  Wellington,  in  his  characteristic  way,  de- 
clared that  he  strongly  objected  to  the  scheme;  but,  as 
the  Government  had  evidently  set  their  hearts  upon  it,  he 
recommended  the  House  of  Lords  not  to  offer  any  opposi- 
tion to  it.  In  the  House  of  Commons  it  was  opposed  by 
Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Mr.  Goulburn,  both  of  whom  strongly 
condemned  the  whole  scheme  as  likely  to  involve  the 
country  in  vast  loss  of  revenue.  The  measure,  however, 
passed  into  law.  Some  idea  of  the  effect  it  has  produced 
upon  the  postal  correspondence  of  the  country  may  be 
gathered  from  the  fact  that  in  1839,  the  last  year  of  the 
heavy  postage,  the  number  of  letters  delivered  in  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  was  a  little  more  than  eighty-two  mil- 
lions, which  included  some  five  millions  and  a  half  of 
franked  letters,  returning  nothing  to  the  revenues  of  the 
country;  whereas,  in  1875,  more  than  a  thousand  millions 
of  letters  were  delivered  in  the  United  Kingdom.  The 
population  during  the  same  time  has  not  nearly  doubled 
itself.  It  has  already  been  remarked  that  the  principle 
of  Sir  Rowland  Hill's  reform  has  since  been  put  into  oper- 
ation in  every  civilized  country  in  the  world.  It  may  be 
added  that  before  long  we  shall,  in  all  human  probability, 
see  an  interoceanic  postage  established  at  a  rate  as  low  as 
people  sometimes  thought  Sir  Rowland  Hill  a  madman 
for  recommending  as  applicable  to  our  inland  post.     The 


76  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

time  is  not  far  distant  when  a  letter  will  be  carried  fronv 
London  to  San  Francisco,  or  to  Tokio  in  Japan,  at  a  rate 
of  charge  as  small  as  that  which  made  financiers  stare  and 
laugh  when  it  was  suggested  as  profitable  remuneration 
for  carrying  a  letter  from  London  to  the  towns  of  Sussex 
or  Hertfordshire.  The  "Penny-post,"  let  it  be  said,  is  an 
older  institution  than  that  which  Sir  Rowland  Hill  intro- 
duced. A  penny-post  for  the  conveyance  of  letters  had 
been  set  up  in  London  so  long  ago  as  1683;  and  it  was 
adopted  or  annexed  by  the  Government  some  years  after. 
An  effort  was  even  made  to  set  up  a  halfpenny-post  in 
London,  in  opposition  to  the  official  penny-post,  in  1708; 
but  the  Government  soon  crushed  this  vexatious  and  in- 
trusive rival.  In  1738  Dr.  Johnson  writes  to  Mr.  Cave 
"  to  entreat  that  you  will  be  pleased  to  inform  me,  by  the 
penny-post,  whether  you  resolve  to  print  the  poem. "  After 
a  while  the  Government  changed  their  penny-post  to  a 
twopenny-post,  and  gradually  made  a  distinction  between 
district  and  other  postal  systems,  and  contrived  to  swell 
the  price  for  deliveries  of  all  kinds.  Long  before  even  this 
time  of  the  penny-post,  the  old  records  of  the  city  of  Bris- 
tol contain  an  account  of  the  payment  of  one  penny  for  the 
carriage  of  letters  to  London.  It  need  hardly  be  ex- 
plained, however,  that  a  penny  in  that  time,  or  even  in 
1683,  was  a  payment  of  very  different  value  indeed  from 
the  modest  sum  which  Sir  Rowland  Hill  was  successful 
in  establishing.  The  ancient  penny-post  resembled  the 
modern  penny-post  only  in  name. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CHARTISM. 

It  cannot,  however,  be  said  that  all  the  omens  under 
which  the  new  Queen's  reign  opened  at  home  were  as  aus- 
picious as  the  coincidences  which  made  it  contemporary 
with  the  first  chapters  of  these  new  and  noble  develop- 
ments in  the  history  of  science  and  invention.  On  the 
contrary,  it  began  amid  many  grim  and  unpromising 
conditions  in  our  social  affairs.  The  winter  of  1837-38 
was  one  of  unusual  severity  and  distress.  There  would 
have  been  much  discontent  and  grumbling  in  any  case 
among  the  class  described  by  French  writers  as  the  prolc- 
taire;  but  the  complaints  were  aggravated  by  a  common 
belief  that  the  young  Queen  was  wholly  under  the  in- 
fluence of  a  frivolous  and  selfish  minister,  who  occupied 
her  with  amusements  while  the  poor  were  starving.  It 
does  not  appear  that  there  was  at  any  time  the  slightest 
justification  for  such  a  belief;  but  it  prevailed  among  the 
working -classes  and  the  poor  very  generally,  and  added  to 
the  sufferings  of  genuine  want  the  bitterness  of  imaginary 
wrong.  Popular  education  was  little  looked  after;  so  far 
as  the  State  was  concerned,  might  be  said  not  to  be  looked 
after  at  all.  The  laws  of  political  economy  were  as  yet 
only  within  the  appreciation  of  a  few,  who  were  regarded 
not  uncommonly,  because  of  their  theories,  somewhat  as 
phrenologists  or  mesmerists  might  be  looked  on  in  a  more 
enlightened  time.  Some  writers  have  made  a  great  deal 
of  the  case  of  Thom  and  his  disciples  as  evidence  of  the 
extraordinary  ignorance  that  prevailed.  Thom  was  a 
broken-down  brewer,  and  in  fact  a  madman,  who  had  for 
some  time  been  going  about  in  Canterbury  and  other  parts 


78  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

of  Kent  bedizened  in  fantastic  costume,  and  styling  him- 
self at  first  Sir  William  Courtenay,  of  Powderham  Castle, 
Knight  of  Malta,  King  of  Jerusalem,  king  of  the  gypsy 
races,  and  we  know  not  what  else.  He  announced  him- 
self as  a  great  political  reformer,  and  for  a  while  he  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  many  to  believe  in  and  support  him. 
He  was  afterward  confined  for  some  time  in  a  lunatic 
asylum,  and  when  he  came  out  he  presented  himself  to  the 
ignorant  peasantry  in  the  character  of  a  second  Messiah. 
He  found  many  followers  and  believers  again,  among  a 
humbler  class,  indeed,  than  those  whom  he  had  formerly 
won  over.  Much  of  his  influence  over  the  poor  Kentish 
laborers  was  due  to  his  dentmciations  of  the  new  Poor 
Law,  which  was  then  popularly  hated  and  feared  with  an 
almost  insane  intensity  of  feeling.  Thom  told  them  he 
had  come  to  regenerate  the  whole  world,  and  also  to  save 
his  followers  from  the  new  Poor  Law ;  and  the  latter  an- 
nouncement commended  the  former.  He  assembled  a 
crowd  of  his  supporters,  and  undertook  to  lead  them  to  an 
attack  on  Canterbury.  With  his  own  hand  he  shot  dead  a 
policeman  who  endeavored  to  oppose  his  movements, 
exactly  as  a  savior  of  society  of  bolder  pretensions  and 
greater  success  did  at  Boulogne  not  long  after.  Two  com- 
panies of  soldiers  came  out  from  Canterbury  to  disperse  the 
rioters.  The  officer  in  command  was  shot  dead  by  Thom. 
Thom's  followers  then  charged  the  unexpecting  soldiers 
so  fiercely  that  for  a  moment  there  was  some  confusion, 
but  the  second  company  fired  a  volley  which  stretched 
Thom  and  several  of  his  adherents  lifeless  on  the  field. 
That  was  an  end  of  the  rising.  Several  of  Thom's  follow- 
ers were  afterward  tried  for  murder,  convicted,  and  sen- 
tenced ;  but  some  pity  was  felt  for  their  ignorance  and 
their  delusion,  and  they  were  not  consigned  to  death. 
Long  after  the  fall  of  their  preposterous  hero  and  saint, 
many  of  Thom's  disciples  believed  that  he  would  return 
from  the  grave  to  carry  out  the  promised  work  of  his 
mission.     All  this  was  lamentable,  but  could  hardly  be 


Chartism.  79 

regarded  as  specially  characteristic  of  the  early  years  of 
the  present  reign.  The  Thorn  delusion  was  not  much 
more  absurd  than  the  Tichborne  mania  of  a  later  day. 
Down  to  our  own  time  there  are  men  and  women  among 
the  vSocial  Democrats  of  cultured  Germany  who  still  cher- 
ish the  hope  that  their  idol  Ferdinand  Lassalle  will  come 
back  from  the  dead  to  lead  and  guide  them. 

But  there  were  political  and  social  dangers  in  the  opening 
of  the  present  reign  more  serious  than  any  that  could  have 
been  conjured  up  by  a  crazy  man  in  a  fantastic  dress. 
There  were  delusions  having  deeper  roots  and  showing  a 
more  inviting  shelter  than  any  that  a  religious  fanatic  of 
the  vulgar  type  could  cause  to  spring  up  in  our  society. 

Only  a  few  weeks  after  the  coronation  of  the  Queen  a 
great  Radical  meeting  was  held  in  Birmingham.  A  man- 
ifesto was  adopted  there  which  afterward  came  to  be 
known  as  the  Chartist  petition.  With  that  movement 
Chartism  began  to  be  one  of  the  most  disturbing  influences 
of  the  political  life  of  the  country.  It  is  a  movement 
which,  although  its  influence  may  now  be  said  to  have 
wholly  passed  away,  well  deserves  to  have  its  history  fully 
written.  For  ten  years  it  agitated  England,  It  sometimes 
Beemed  to  threaten  an  actual  uprising  of  all  \hQ proldtaire 
against  what  were  then  the  political  and  social  institutions 
of  the  country.  It  might  have  been  a  very  serious  danger 
if  the  State  had  been  involved  in  any  external  difficulties. 
It  was  backed  by  much  genuine  enthusiasm,  passion, 
and  intelligence.  It  appealed  strongly  and  naturally  to 
whatever  there  was  of  discontent  among  the  working- 
classes.  It  afforded  a  most  acceptable  and  convenient 
means  by  which  ambitious  politicians  of  the  self-seek- 
ing order  could  raise  themselves  into  temporary  im- 
portance. Its  fierce  and  fitful  flame  went  out  at  last 
under  the  influence  of  the  clear,  strong,  and  steady  light 
of  political  reform  and  education.  The  one  great  lesson 
it  teaches  is,  that  political  agitation  lives  and  is  formidable 
only  by  virtue   of  what   is   reasonable   in   its   demands. 


8o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Thousands  of  ignorant  and  miserable  men  all  over  the 
country  joined  the  Chartist  agitation  who  cared  nothing 
about  the  substantial  value  of  its  political  claims.  They 
were  poor,  they  were  overworked,  they  were  badly  paid, 
their  lives  were  altogether  wretched.  They  got  into  their 
heads  some  wild  idea  that  the  People's  Charter  would  give 
them  better  food  and  wages,  and  lighter  work  if  it  were 
obtained,  and  that  for  that  very  reason  the  aristocrats  and 
the  officials  would  not  grant  it.  No  political  concessions 
could  really  have  satisfied  these  men.  If  the  Charter  had 
been  granted  in  1838,  they  would  no  doubt  have  been  as 
dissatisfied  as  ever  in  1839.  But  the  discontent  of  these 
poor  creatures  would  have  brought  with  it  little  danger  to 
the  State  if  it  had  not  become  part  of  the  support  of  an 
organization  which  could  show  some  sound  and  good  rea- 
son for  the  demands  it  made.  The  moment  that  the  clear 
and  practical  political  grievances  were_  dealt  with,  the 
organization  melted  away.  Vague  discontent,  however 
natural  and  excusable  it  may  be,  is  only  formidable  in 
politics  when  it  helps  to  swell  the  strength  and  the  num- 
bers of  a  crowd  which  calls  for  some  reform  that  can  be 
made  and  is  withheld.  One  of  the  vulgarest  fallacies  of 
state-craft  is  to  declare  that  it  is  of  no  use  granting  the 
reforms  which  would  satisfy  reasonable  demands,  because 
there  are  still  unreasonable  agitators  whom  these  will  not 
satisfy.  Get  the  reasonable  men  on  your  side,  and  you 
need  not  fear  the  unreasonable.  This  is  the  lesson  taught 
to  statesmen  by  the  Chartist  agitation. 

A  funeral  oration  over  Chartism  was  pronounced  by  Sir 
John  Campbell,  then  Attorney-general,  afterward  Lord 
Chief-justice  Campbell,  at  a  public  dinner  at  Edinburgh 
on  October  24th,  1839.  He  spoke  at  some  length  and  with 
much  complacency  of  Chartism  as  an  agitation  which  had 
passed  away.  Some  ten  days  afterward  occurred  the  most 
formidable  outburst  of  Chartism  that  had  been  known  up 
to  that  time,  and  Chartism  continued  to  be  an  active  and 
a  disturbing  influence  in  England  for  nearly  ten  years 


Chartism.  81" 

after.  If  Sir  John  Campbell  had  told  his  friends  and  con- 
stituents at  the  Edinburgh  dinner  that  the  influence  of 
Chartism  was  just  about  to  make  itself  really  felt,  he 
would  have  shown  himself  a  somewhat  more  acute  politi- 
cian than  we  now  understand  him  to  be.  Seldom  has  a 
public  man  setting  up  to  be  a  political  authority  made  a 
-Ahorse  hit  than  he  did  in  that  memorable  declaration. 
Campbell  was,  indeed,  only  a  clever,  shrewd  lawyer  of  the 
hard  and  narrow  class.  He  never  made  any  pretension 
to  statesmanship,  or  even  to  great  political  knowledge;  and 
his  unfortunate  blunder  might  be  passed  over  without 
notice  were  it  not  that  it  illustrates  fairly  enough  the  man- 
ner in  which  men  of  better  information  and  judgment  than 
he  were  at  that  time  in  the  habit  of  disposing  of  all  incon- 
venient political  problems.  The  Attorney-general  was 
aware  that  there  had  been  a  few  riots  and  a  few  arrests,  and 
that  the  law  had  been  what  he  would  call  vindicated ;  and  as 
he  had  no  manner  of  sympathy  with  the  motives  which  could 
lead  men  to  distress  themselves  and  their  friends  about 
imaginary  charters,  he  assumed  that  there  was  an  end  of 
the  matter.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  to  ask  himself  whether 
there  might  not  be  some  underlying  causes  to  explain,  if 
not  to  excuse,  the  agitation  that  just  then  began  to  disturb 
the  country,  and  that  continued  to  disturb  it  for  so  many 
years.  Even  if  he  had  inquired  into  the  subject,  it  is  not 
likely  that  he  would  have  come  to  any  wiser  conclusion 
about  it.  The  dramatic  instinct,  if  we  may  be  allowed  to 
call  it  so,  which  enables  a  man  to  put  himself  for  the 
moment  into  the  condition  and  mood  of  men  entirely  un- 
like himself  in  feelings  and  conditions,  is  an  indispensable 
element  of  real  statesmanship;  but  it  is  the  rarest  of  all 
gifts  among  politicians  of  the  second  order.  If  Sir  John 
Campbell  had  turned  his  attention  to  the  Chartist  question, 
he  would  only  have  found  that  a  number  of  men,  for  the 
most  part  poor  and  ignorant,  were  complaining  of  griev- 
ances where  he  could  not  for  himself  see  any  substantial 
grievances  at  all.  That  would  have  been  enough  for  him. 
Vol,  I.— 6 


83  A  History  of  Our  Owji  Times. 

If  a  solid,  wealthy,  and  rising  lawyer  could  not  see  any 
cause  for  grumbling,  he  would  have  made  up  his  mind 
that  no  reasonable  persons  worthy  the  consideration  of 
sensible  legislators  would  continue  to  grumble  after  they 
had  been  told  by  those  in  authority  that  it  was  their  busi- 
ness to  keep  quiet.  But  if  he  had,  on  the  other  hand,  looked 
with  the  light  of  sympathetic  intelligence,  of  that  dramatic 
instinct  which  has  just  been  mentioned,  at  the  condition 
of  the  classes  among  whom  Chartism  was  then  rife,  he 
would  have  seen  that  it  was  not  likely  the  agitation  could 
be  put  down  by  a  few  prosecutions  and  a  few  arrests,  and 
the  censure  of  a  prosperous  Attorney-general.  He  would 
have  seen  that  Chartism  was  not  a  cause  but  a  conse- 
quence. The  intelligence  of  a  very  ordinary  man  who 
approached  the  question  in  an  impartial  mood  might 
have  seen  that  Chartism  was  the  expression  of  a  vague 
discontent  with  very  positive  grievances  and  evils. 

We  have,  in  our  time,  outlived  the  days  of  political 
abstractions.  The  catchwords  which  thrilled  our  fore- 
fathers with  emotion  on  one  side  or  the  other  fall  with 
hardly  any  meaning  on  our  ears.  We  smile  at  such 
phrases  as  "  the  rights  of  man."  We  hardl)'  know  what  is 
meant  by  talking  of  "the  people"  as  the  words  were  used 
long  ago,  when  "  the  people"  was  understood  to  mean  a  vast 
mass  of  wronged  persons  who  had  no  representation,  and 
were  oppressed  by  privilege  and  the  aristocracy.  We 
seldom  talk  of  "liberty;"  any  one  venturing  to  found  a 
theory  or  even  a  declamation  on  some  supposed  deprival 
of  liberty  would  soon  find  himself  in  the  awkward  position 
of  being  called  on  to  give  a  scientific  definition  of  what 
he  understood  liberty  to  be.  He  would  be  as  much  puz- 
zled as  were  certain  English  workingmen,  who,  desiring 
to  express  to  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  their  sympathy  with 
what  they  called  in  the  slang  of  Continental  democracy 
"  the  Revolution,"  were  calmly  bidden  by  the  great  Liberal 
thinker  to  ask  themselves  what  they  meant  by  "  the  Revo- 
lution," which  revolution,  what  revolution,  and  why  they 


Chartism.  83 

sympathized  with  it.  But  perhaps  we  are  all  a  little  too 
apt  to  think  that  because  these  abstractions  have  no  living 
meaning-  now  they  never  had  any  living  meaning  at  all. 
They  convey  no  manner  of  clear  idea  in  England  now,  but 
it  does  not  by  any  means  follow  that  they  never  conveyed 
any  such  idea.  The  phrase  which  Mr.  Mill  so  properly 
condemned  when  he  found  it  in  the  mouths  of  English 
workingmen  had  a  very  intelligible  and  distinct  meaning 
when  it  first  came  to  be  used  in  France  and  throughout 
the  Continent.  "  The  Revolution"  expressed  a  clear  real- 
ity, as  recognizable  by  the  intelligence  of  all  who  heard 
it  as  the  name  of  Free-trade  or  of  Ultramontanism  to  men 
of  our  time.  "  The  Revolution"  was  the  principle  which 
was  asserting  all  over  Europe  the  overthrow  of  the  old 
absolute  power  of  kings,  and  it  described  it  just  as  well  as 
any  word  could  do.  It  is  meaningless  in  our  day,  for  the 
very  reason  that  it  was  full  of  meaning  then.  So  it  was 
with  "  the  people,"  and  "  the  rights  of  the  people,"  and  the 
"rights  of  labor,"  and  all  the  other  grandiloquent  phrases 
which  seem  to  us  so  empty  and  so  meaningless  now.  They 
are  empty  and  meaningless  at  the  present  hour ;  but  they 
have  no  application  now  chiefly  because  they  had  applica- 
tion then. 

The  Reform  Bill  of  1832  had  been  necessarily,  and  per- 
haps naturally,  a  class  measure.  It  had  done  great  things 
for  the  constitutional  system  of  England.  It  had  averted 
a  revolution  which  without  some  such  concession  would 
probably  have  been  inevitable.  It  had  settled  forever  the 
question  which  was  so  fiercely  and  so  gravely  debated 
during  the  discussions  of  the  reform  years,  whether  the 
English  Constitution  is  or  is  not  based  upon  a  system  of 
popular  representation.  To  many  at  present  it  may  seem 
hardly  credible  that  sane  men  could  have  denied  the  exist- 
ence of  the  representative  principle.  But  during  the  de- 
bates on  the  great  Reform  Bill  such  a  denial  was  the 
strong  point  of  many  of  the  leading  opponents  of  the 
measure,  including  the  Duke  of  Wellington  himself.     The 


§4  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

principle  of  the  Constitiition,  it  was  soberly  argued,  is  that 
the  sovereign  invites  whatever  communities  or  interests 
he  thinks  fit  to  send  in  persons  to  Parliament  to  take 
counsel  with  him  on  the  affairs  of  the  nation.  This  idea 
was  got  rid  of  by  the  Reform  Bill.  That  bill  abolished 
fifty-six  nomination  or  rotten  boroughs,  and  took  away 
half  the  representation  from  thirty  others ;  it  disposed  of 
the  seats  thus  obtained  by  giving  sixty-five  additional 
representatives  to  the  counties,  and  conferring  the  right  of 
returning  members  on  Manchester,  Leeds,  Birmingham, 
and  some  thirty-nine  large  and  prosperous  towns  which 
had  previously  had  no  representation ;  while,  as  Lord  John 
Russell  said  in  his  speech  when  he  introduced  the  bill  in 
March,  1831,"  a  ruined  mound"  sent  two  representatives  to 
Parliament;  "  three  niches  in  a  stone  wall"  sent  two  repre- 
sentatives to  Parliament;  "a  park  where  no  houses  were 
to  be  seen"  sent  two  representatives  to  Parliament.  The 
bill  introduced  o.  £,10  household  qualification  for  boroughs, 
and  extended  the  county  franchise  to  lease-holders  and 
copy-holders.  But  it  left  the  working-classes  almost  alto- 
gether out  of  the  franchise.  Not  merely  did  it  confer  no 
political  emancipation  on  them,  but  it  took  away  in  many 
places  the  peculiar  franchises  which  made  the  working- 
men  voters.  There  were  communities — such,  for  example, 
as  that  of  Preston,  in  Lancashire — where  the  system  of 
franchise  existing  created  something  like  universal  suf- 
frage. All  this  was  smoothed  away,  if  such  an  expression 
may  be  used,  by  the  Reform  Bill.  In  truth,  the  Reform 
Bill  broke  down  the  monopoly  which  the  aristocracy  and 
landed  classes  had  enjoyed,  and  admitted  the  middle 
classes  to  a  share  of  the  law-making  power.  The  repre- 
sentation was  divided  between  the  aristocracy  and  the 
middle  class,  instead  of  being,  as  before,  the  exclusive 
possession  of  the  former. 

The  working-class,  in  the  opinion  of  many  of  their  ablest 
and  most  influential  representatives,  were  not  merely  left 
out  but  shouldered  out.     This  was  all  the  more  exasperat- 


Chartism.  85 

ing  because  the  excitement  and  agitation  by  the  strength  of 
v;hich  the  Reform  Bill  was  carried  in  the  teeth  of  so  much 
resistance  were  kept  up  by  the  workingmen.  There  was, 
besides,  at  the  time  of  the  Reform  Bill,  a  very  high  degree 
of  what  may  be  called  the  temperature  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution still  heating  the  senses  and  influencing  the  judg- 
ment even  of  the  aristocratic  leaders  of  the  movement. 
What  Richter  calls  the  "  seed-grains"  of  the  revolutionary 
doctrines  had  been  blown  abroad  so  widely  that  they  rested 
in  some  of  the  highest  as  well  as  in  most  of  the  lowliest 
places.  Some  of  the  Reform  leaders — Lord  Durham, for 
instance — were  prepared  to  go  much  farther  in  the  way  of 
Radicalism  than  at  a  later  period  Mr.  Cobden  or  Mr. 
Bright  would  have  gone.  There  was  more  than  once  a  sort 
of  appeal  to  the  workingmen  of  the  country  which,  how- 
ever differently  it  may  have  been  meant,  certainly  sounded 
in  their  ears  as  if  it  were  an  intimation  that  in  the  event 
of  the  bill  being  resisted  too  long  it  might  be  necessary 
to  try  what  the  strength  of  a  popular  uprising  could  do. 
Many  years  after,  in  the  defence  of  the  Irish  state-prison- 
ers at  Clonrael,  the  counsel  who  pleaded  their  cause  in- 
sisted that  they  had  warrant  for  their  conduct  in  certain 
proceedings  which  were  in  preparation  during  the  Reform 
agitation.  He  talked  with  undisguised  significance  of  the 
teacher  being  in  the  ministry  and  the  pupils  in  the  dock; 
and  quoted  Captain  Macheath  to  the  effect  that  if  laws 
were  made  equally  for  every  degree,  there  might  even  then 
be  rare  company  on  Tyburn  tree.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
attach  too  much  importance  to  assertions  of  this  kind,  or  to 
accept  them  as  sober  contributions  to  history;  but  they  are 
very  instructive  as  a  means  of  enabling  us  to  understand 
the  feeling  of  soreness  which  remained  in  the  minds  of 
large  masses  of  the  population  when,  after  the  passing  of 
the  Reform  Till,  they  found  themselves  left  out  in  the 
cold.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  they  believed  that  their 
strength  had  been  kept  in  reserve  or  in  terror  em  to  secure 
the  carrying  of  the  Reform  Bill,  and  that  when  it  was  car- 


86  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ried  they  were  immediately  thrown  over  by  those  whom 
they  had  thus  helped  to  pass  it.  Therefore,  at  the  time 
when  the  young  sovereign  ascended  the  throne,  the  work- 
ing-classes in  all  the  large  towns  were  in  a  state  of  pro- 
found disappointment  and  discontent,  almost,  indeed, 
of  disaffection.  Chartism  was  beginning  to  succeed  to  the 
Reform  agitation.  The  leaders  who  had  come  from  the 
ranks  of  the  aristocracy  had  been  discarded  or  had  with- 
drawn. In  some  cases  they  had  withdrawn  in  perfect 
good  faith,  believing  sincerely  that  they  had  done  the 
work  which  they  undertook  to  do,  and  that  that  was  all 
the  country  required.  Men  drawn  more  immediately 
from  the  working-class  itself,  or  who  had  in  some  way 
been  dropped  down  by  a  class  higher  in  the  social  scale, 
took  up  the  popular  leadership  now. 

Chartism  may  be  said  to  have  sprung  definitively  into 
existence  in  consequence  of  the  formal  declarations  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Liberal  party  in  Parliament  that  they  did 
not  intend  to  push  Reform  any  farther.  At  the  opening 
of  the  first  Parliament  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign  the  ques- 
tion was  brought  to  a  test.  A  Radical  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons  moved  as  an  amendment  to  the  ad- 
dress a  resolution  declaring  in  favor  of  the  ballot  and  of 
shorter  duration  of  Parliaments.  Only  twenty  members 
voted  for  it;  and  Lord  John  Russell  declared  distinctly 
against  all  such  attempts  to  reopen  the  Reform  question. 
It  was  impossible  that  this  declaration  should  not  be  re- 
ceived with  disappointment  and  anger  by  great  masses  of 
the  people.  They  had  been  in  the  full  assurance  that  the 
Reform  Bill  itself  was  only  the  means  by  which  greater 
changes  were  to  be  brought  about.  Lord  John  Russell 
said  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  to  push  Reform  any 
farther  then  would  be  a  breach  of  faith  toward  those  who 
helped  him  to  carry  it.  A  great  many  outside  Parliament 
not  unnaturally  regarded  the  refusal  to  go  any  farther  as 
a  breach  of  faith  toward  them  on  the  part  of  the  Liberal 
leaders.     Lord  John  Russell  was  right  from  his  point  of 


Chartism.  87 

view.  It  would  have  been  impossible  to  carry  the  Reform 
movement  any  farther  just  then.  In  a  country  like  ours, 
where  interests  are  so  nicely  balanced,  it  must  always  hap- 
pen that  a  forward  movement  in  politics  is  followed  by  a 
certain  reaction.  The  parliamentary  leaders  in  Parlia- 
ment were  already  beginning  to  feel  the  influence  of  this 
law  of  our  political  growth.  It  would  have  been  hopeless 
to  attempt  to  get  the  upper  and  middle  classes  at  such  a 
time  to  consent  to  any  further  changes  of  considerable 
importance.  But  the  feeling  of  those  who  had  helped  so 
materially  to  bring  about  the  Reform  movement  was  at 
least  intelligible  when  they  found  that  its  effects  were  to 
stop  just  short  of  the  measures  which  alone  could  have  any 
direct  influence  on  their  political  position. 

A  conference  was  held  almost  immediately  between  a 
few  of  the  Liberal  members  of  Parliament  who  professed 
radical  opinions  and  some  of  the  leaders  of  the  working- 
men.  At  this  conference  the  programme,  or  what  was 
always  afterward  known  as  "the  Charter,"  was  agreed 
upon  and  drawn  up.  The  name  of  "Charter"  appears  to 
have  been  given  to  it  for  the  first  time  by  O'Connell. 
"There's  your  Charter,"  he  said  to  the  secretary  of  the 
Workingmen's  Association  ;  "  agitate  for  it,  and  never  be 
content  with  anything  less."  It  is  a  great  thing  accom- 
plished in  political  agitation  to  have  found  a  telling  name, 
A  name  is  almost  as  important  for  a  new  agitation  as  for  a 
new  novel.  The  title  of  "  The  People's  Charter"  would  of 
itself  have  launched  the  movement. 

Quietly  studied  now,  the  People's  Charter  does  not 
seem  a  very  formidable  document.  There  is  little  smell 
of  gunpowder  about  it.  Its  "points,"  as  they  were  called, 
were  six.  Manhood  Suffrage  came  first.  It  was  then 
called  universal  suffrage,  but  it  only  meant  manhood 
suffrage,  for  the  promoters  of  the  movement  had  not  the 
slightest  idea  of  insisting  on  the  franchise  for  women. 
The  second  was  Annual  Parliaments.  Vote  by  Ballot  was 
the  third.     Abolition  of  the  Property  Qualification  (then 


88  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

and  for  many  years  after  required  for  the  election  of  a 
member  to  Parliament)  was  the  fourth.  The  Payment  of 
Members  was  the  fifth ;  and  the  Division  of  the  Country 
into  Equal  Electoral  Districts,  the  sixth  of  the  famous 
points.  Of  these  proposals  some,  it  will  be  seen,  were 
perfectly  reasonable.  Not  one  was  so  absolutely  unrea- 
sonable as  to  be  outside  the  range  of  fair  and  quiet  discus- 
sion among  practical  politicians.  Three  of  the  points — • 
half,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  whole  number — have  already 
been  made  part  of  our  constitutional  system.  The  exist- 
ing franchise  may  be  virtually  regarded  as  manhood  suf- 
frage. We  have  for  years  been  voting  by  means  of  a 
written  paper  dropped  in  a  ballot-box.  The  property 
qualification  for  members  of  Parliament  could  hardly  be 
said  to  have  been  abolished.  Such  a  word  seems  far  too 
grand  and  dignified  to  describe  the  fate  that  befell  it. 
We  should  rather  say  that  it  was  extinguished  by  its  own 
absurdity  and  viciousness.  It  never  kept  out  of  Parlia- 
ment any  person  legally  disqualified,  and  it  was  the 
occasion  of  incessant  tricks  and  devices  which  would 
surely  have  been  counted  disreputable  and  disgraceful  to 
those  who  engaged  in  them,  but  that  the  injustice  and 
folly  of  the  system  generated  a  sort  of  false  public  con- 
science where  it  was  concerned,  and  made  people  think  it 
as  lawful  to  cheat  it,  as  at  one  time  the  most  respectable 
persons  in  private  life  thought  it  allowable  to  cheat  the 
revenue  and  wear  smuggled  lace  or  drink  smuggled 
brandy.  The  proposal  to  divide  the  country  into  equal 
electoral  districts  is  one  which  can  hardly  yet  be  regarded 
as  having  come  to  any  test.  But  it  is  almost  certain  that 
sooner  or  later  some  alteration  of  our  present  system  in 
that  direction  will  be  adopted.  Of  the  two  other  points 
of  the  Charter,  the  payment  of  members  may  be  regarded 
as  decidedly  objectionable;  and  that  for  yearly  parliaments 
as  embodying  a  proposition  which  would  make  public  life 
an  almost  insufferable  nuisance  to  those  actively  concerned 
in  it.     But  neither  of  these  two  proposals  would  be  looked 


Chartism.  89 

upon  in  our  time  as  outside  the  range  of  legitimate  polit- 
ical discussion.  Indeed,  the  difficulty  any  one  engaged  in 
their  advocacy  would  find  just  now  would  be  in  getting 
any  considerable  body  of  listeners  to  take  the  slightest 
interest  in  the  argument  either  for  or  against  them. 

The  Chartists  might  be  roughly  divided  into  three 
classes — the  political  Chartists,  the  social  Chartists,  and 
the  Chartists  of  vague  discontent,  who  joined  the  move- 
ment because  they  were  wretched  and  felt  angry.  The 
first  were  the  regular  political  agitators,  who  wanted  a 
wider  popular  representation ;  the  second  were  chiefly  led 
to  the  movement  by  their  hatred  of  the  "bread-tax." 
These  two  classes  were  perfectly  clear  as  to  what  they 
wanted:  some  of  their  demands  were  just  and  reasonable; 
none  of  them  were"  without  the  sphere  of  rational  and 
peaceful  controversy.  The  disciples  of  mere  discontent 
naturally  swerved  alternately  to  the  side  of  those  leaders 
or  sections  who  talked  loudest  and  fiercest  against  the  law- 
makers and  the  constituted  authorities.  Chartism  soon 
split  itself  into  two  general  divisions — the  moral  force,  and 
the  physical  force  Chartism.  Nothing  can  be  more  unjust 
than  to  represent  the  leaders  and  promoters  of  the  move- 
ment as  mere  factious  and  self-seeking  demagogues. 
Some  of  them  were  men  of  great  ability  and  eloquence; 
some  were  impassioned  young  poets,  drawn  from  the  class 
whom  Kingsley  has  described  in  his  "  Alton  Locke ;"  some 
were  men  of  education ;  many  were  earnest  and  devoted 
fanatics;  and,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  all,  or  nearly  all, 
were  sincere.  Even  the  man  who  did  the  movement  most 
harm,  and  who  made  himself  most  odious  to  all  reasonable 
outsiders,  the  once  famous,  now  forgotten,  Feargus  O'Con- 
nor, appears  to  have  been  sincere,  and  to  have  personally 
lost  more  than  he  gained  by  his  Chartism.  Four  or  five 
years  after  the  collapse  of  what  may  be  called  the  active 
Chartist  agitation,  a  huge  white-headed,  vacuous-eyed 
man  was  to  be  seen  of  mornings  wandering  through  the 
arcades   of  Covent  Garden  Market,  looking  at  the  fruits 


90  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times,  \ 

and  flowers,  occasionally  taking  up  a  flower,  smelling  at 
it,  and  putting  it  down,  with  a  smile  of  infantile  satisfac- 
tion ;  a  man  who  might  have  reminded  observers  of  Mr. 
Dick  in  Dickens'  "  David  Copperfield ;"  and  this  was  the 
once  renowned,  once  dreaded  and  detested  Feargus  O'Con- 
nor. For  some  time  before  his  death  his  reason  had  wholly 
deserted  him.  Men  did  not  know  at  first  in  the  House  of 
Commons  the  meaning  of  the  odd  pranks  which  Feargus 
was  beginning  to  play  there  to  the  bewilderment  of  the 
great  assembly.  At  last  it  was  seen  that  the  fallen  leader 
of  Chartism  was  a  hopeless  madman.  It  is  hardly  to  be 
doubted  that  insanity  had  long  been  growing  on  him,  and 
that  some  at  least  of  his  political  follies  and  extravagances 
were  the  result  of  an  increasing  disorder  of  the  brain.  In 
his  day  he  had  been  the  very  model  for  a  certain  class  of 
demagogue.  He  was  of  commanding  presence,  great 
istature,  and  almost  gigantic  strength.  He  had  education ; 
he. had  mixed  in  good  society;  he  belonged  to  an  old  fam- 
ily, and,  indeed,  boasted  his  descent  from  a  line  of  Irish 
kings,  not  without  some  ground  for  the  claim.  He  had 
been  a  man  of  some  fashion  at  one  time,  and  had  led  a  life 
of  wild  dissipation  in  his  early  years.  He  had  a  kind  of 
eloquence  which  told  with  immense  power  on  a  mass  of 
half-ignorant  hearers;  and,  indeed,  men  who  had  no  man- 
ner of  liking  for  him  or  sympathy  with  his  doctrines  have 
declared  that  he  was  the  most  effective  mob  orator  they 
had  ever  heard.  He  was  ready,  if  needs  were,  to  fight 
his  way  single-handed  through  a  whole  mass  of  Tory 
opponents  at  a  contested  election.  Thomas  Cooper,  the 
venerable  poet  of  Chartism,  has  given  an  amusing  descrip- 
tion, in  his  autobiography,  of  Feargus  O'Connor,  who 
was  then  his  hero,  leaping  from  a  wagon  at  a  Nottingham 
election  into  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  Tory  butchers,  and 
with  only  two  stout  Chartist  followers  fighting  his  way 
through  all  opposition,  "  flooring  the  butchers  like  nine- 
pins." "  Once,"  says  Mr.  Cooper,  "the  Tory  lambs  fought 
off  all  who  surrounded  him  and  got  him  down,  and  my 


Chartism.  91 

heart  quaked — for  I  thought  they  would  kill  him.  But  in 
a  very  few  moments  his  red  head  emerged  again  from  the 
rough  human  billows,  and  he  was  fighting  his  way  as  be- 
fore. " 

There  were  many  men  in  the  movement  of  a  nobler 
moral  nature  than  poor  huge,  wild  Feargus  O'Connor. 
There  were  men  like  Thomas  Cooper  himself,  devoted, 
impassioned,  full  of  poetic  aspiration,  and  no  scant  meas- 
ure of  poetic  inspiration  as  well.  Henry  Vincent  was  a 
man  of  unimpeachable  character  and  of  some  ability,  an 
effective  popular  speaker,  who  has  since  maintained  in  a 
very  unpretending  way  a  considerable  reputation.  Ernest 
Jones  was  as  sincere  and  self-sacrificing  a  man  as  ever 
joined  a  sinking  cause.  He  had  proved  his  sincerity  more 
in  deed  than  word.  His  talents  only  fell  short  of  that 
height  which  might  claim  to  be  regarded  as  genius.  His 
education  was  that  of  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman.  Many 
men  of  education  and  ability  were  draAvn  into  sympath}', 
if  not  into  actual  co-operation,  with  the  Chartists  by  a 
conviction  that  some  of  their  claims  were  well-founded, 
and  that  the  grievances  of  the  working-classes,  which  were 
terrible  to  contemplate,  were  such  as  a  Parliament  better 
representing  all  classes  would  be  able  to  remedy.  Some  of 
these  men  have  since  made  for  themselves  an  honorable 
name  in  Parliament  and  out  of  it ;  some  of  them  have 
risen  to  high  political  position.  It  is  necessary  to  read 
such  a  book  as  Thomas  Cooper's  autobiography  to  imder- 
stand  how  genuine  was  the  poetic  and  political  enthusiasm 
which  was  at  the  heart  of  the  Chartist  movement,  and  how 
bitter  was  the  suffering  which  drove  into  its  ranks  so 
many  thousands  of  stout  workingmen  who,  in  a  country 
like  England,  might  well  have  expected  to  be  able  to  live 
by  the  hard  work  they  were  only  too  willing  to  do.  One 
must  read  the  Anti-Corn-law  rhymes  of  Ebenezer  Elliott 
to  understand  how  the  "  bread-tax"  became  identified  in 
the  minds  of  the  very  best  of  the  working-class,  and 
identified  justly,  with  the  system  of  political  and  economi- 


92  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

cal  legislation  which  was  undoubtedly  kept  up,  although 
n'ot  of  conscious  purpose,  for  the  benefit  of  a  class.  In  the 
minds  of  too  many,  the  British  Constitution  meant  hard 
work  and  half-starvation. 

A  whole  literature  of  Chartist  newspapers  sprang  up  to 
advocate  the  cause.  The  Northern  Star,  owned  and  con- 
ducted by  Feargus  O'Connor,  was  the  most  popular  and 
influential  of  them,  but  every  great  town  had  its  Chartist 
press.  Meetings  were  held  at  which  sometimes  very 
violent  language  was  employed.  It  began  to  be  the 
practice  to  hold  torchlight  meetings  at  night,  and  many 
men  went  armed  to  these,  and  open  clamor  was  made  by 
the  wilder  of  the  Chartists  for  an  appeal  to  arms.  A  for- 
midable riot  took  place  in  Birmingham,  where  the  au- 
thorities endeavored  to  put  down  a  Chartist  meeting.  Eben- 
ezer  Elliott  and  other  sensible  sympathizers  endeavored 
to  open  the  eyes  of  the  more  extreme  Chartists  to  the  folly 
of  all  schemes  for  measures  of  violence ;  but,  for  the  time, 
the  more  violent  a  speaker  was,  the  better  chance  he  had 
of  becoming  popular.  Efforts  were  made  at  times  to  bring 
about  a  compromise  with  the  middle-class  Liberals  and 
the  Anti-Corn-law  leaders;  but  all  such  attempts  proved 
failures.  The  Chartists  would  not  give  up  their  Charter; 
many  of  them  would  not  renounce  the  hope  of  seeing  it 
carried  by  force.  The  Government  began  to  prosecute 
some  of  the  orators  and  leaders  of  the  Charter  movement; 
and  some  of  these  were  convicted,  imprisoned,  and  treated 
with  great  severity.  Henry  Vincent's  imprisonment  at 
Newport,  in  Wales,  was  the  occasion  of  an  attempt  at 
rescue  which  bore  a  very  close  resemblance  indeed  to  a 
scheme  of  organized  and  armed  rebellion. 

Newport  had  around  it  a  large  mining  population,  and 
the  miners  were  nearly  all  physical-force  Chartists.  It 
was  arranged  among  them  to  march  in  three  divisions  to 
a  certain  rendezvous,  and  when  they  had  formed  a  junction 
there,  which  was  to  be  two  hours  after  midnight,  to  march 
into  Newport,   attack  the  jail,  and  effect  the  release  ci 


Chartism.  9^ 

Vincent  and  other  prisoners.  The  attempt  was  to  be 
under  the  chief  command  of  Mr.  Frost,  a  trader  of  New- 
port, who  had  been  a  magistrate,  but  was  deprived  of  the 
commission  of  the  peace  for  violent  political  speeches— a 
man  of  respectable  character  and  conduct  up  to  that  time. 
This  was  on  November  4th,  1839.  There  was  some  mis- 
understanding and  delay,  as  almost  invariably  happens  in 
such  enterprises,  and  the  divisions  of  the  little  army  did 
not  effect  their  junction  in  time.  When  they  entered  New- 
port, they  found  the  authorities  fully  prepared  to  meet 
them.  Frost  entered  the  town  at  the  head  of  one  division 
only,  another  following  him  at  some  interval.  The  third 
was  nowhere,  as  far  as  the  object  of  the  enterprise  was 
concerned.  A  conflict  took  place  between  the  rioters  and 
the  soldiery  and  police,  and  the  rioters  were  dispersed 
with  a  loss  of  some  ten  killed  and  fifty  wounded.  In  their 
flight  they  encountered  some  of  the  other  divisions  com- 
ing up  to  the  enterprise  all  too  late.  Nothing  was  more 
remarkable  than  the  courage  shown  by  the  mayor  of  New- 
port, the  magistrates,  and  the  little  body  of  soldiers.  The 
mayor,  Mr.  Phillips,  received  two  gunshot  wounds.  Frost 
was  arrested  next  day  along  with  some  of  his  colleagues. 
They  were  tried  on  June  6th,  1840.  The  charge  against 
them  was  oj\e  of  high-treason.  There  did  really  appear 
ground  enough  to  suppose  that  the  expedition  led  by  Frost 
was  not  merely  to  rescue  Vincent,  but  to  set  going  the  great 
rebellious  movement  of  which  the  physical -force  Chartists 
had  long  been  talking.  The  Chartists  appear  at  first  to 
have  numbered  some  ten  thousand — twenty  thousand,  in- 
deed, according  to  other  accounts — and  they  were  armed 
with  guns,  pikes,  swords,  pickaxes,  and  bludgeons.  If 
the  delay  and  misunderstanding  had  not  taken  place,  and 
they  had  arrived  at  their  rendezvous  at  the  appointed  time, 
the  attempt  might  have  led  to  very  calamitous  results. 
The  jury  found  Frost  and  two  of  his  companions,  Williams 
and  Jones,  guilty  of  high-treason,  and  they  were  sentenced 
to  death ;  the  sentence,  however,  was  commuted  to  one  of 


94  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

transportation  for  life.  Even  this  was  afterward  relaxed, 
and  when  some  years  had  passed  away,  and  Chartism  had 
ceased  to  be  a  disturbing  influence,  Frost  was  allowed  to 
return  to  England,  where  he  found  that  a  new  generation 
had  grown  up,  and  that  he  was  all  but  forgotten.  In  the 
mean  time  the  Corn-law  agitation  had  been  successful ;  the 
year  of  revolutions  had  passed  harmlessly  over;  Feargus 
O'Connor's  day  was  done. 

But  the  trial  and  conviction  of  Frost,  Williams,  and 
Jones  did  not  put  a  stop  to  the  Chartist  agitation.  On 
the  contrary,  that  agitation  seemed  rather  to  wax  and 
strengthen  and  grow  broader  because  of  the  attempt  at 
Newport  and  its  consequences.  Thomas  Cooper,  for  ex- 
ample, had  never  attended  a  Chartist  meeting,  nor  known 
anything  of  Chartism  beyond  what  he  read  in  the  news- 
papers, until  after  the  conviction  of  Frost  and  his  compan- 
ions. There  was  no  lack  of  what  were  called  energetic 
measures  on  the  part  of  the  Government.  The  leading 
Chartists  all  over  the  country  were  prosecuted  and  tried, 
literally  by  hundreds.  In  most  cases  they  were  convicted 
and  sentenced  to  terms  of  imprisonment.  The  imprison- 
ment served  rather  to  make  the  Chartist  leaders  popular, 
and  to  advertise  the  movement,  than  to  accomplish  any 
purpose  the  Government  had  at  heart.  They  helped  to 
make  the  Government  very  unpopular.  The  working- 
classes  grew  more  and  more  bitter  against  the  Whigs, 
who,  they  said,  had  professed  Liberalism  only  to  gain  their 
own  ends,  and  were  really  at  heart  less  Liberal  than  the 
Tories.  Now  and  then  an  imprisoned  representative  of 
the  Chartist  movement  got  to  the  end  of  his  period  of  sen- 
tence, and  came  out  of  durance.  He  was  a  hero  all  over 
again,  and  his  return  to  public  life  was  the  signal  for 
fresh  demonstrations  of  Chartism.  At  the  general  election 
of  1 841,  the  vast  majority  of  the  Chartists,  acting  on  the 
advice  of  some  of  their  more  extreme  leaders,  threw  all 
their  support  into  the  cause  of  the  Tories,  and  so  helped 
the  downfall  of  the  Melbourne  Administration. 


Chartism.  95 

Wide  and  almost  universal  discontent  among  the  work- 
ing-classes in  town  and  country  still  helped  to  swell  the 
Chartist  ranks.  The  weavers  and  stockingers  in  some  of 
the  manufacturing  towns  were  miserably  poor.  Wages 
were  low  everywhere.  In  the  agricultural  districts  the 
complaints  against  the  operation  of  the  new  Poor  Law 
were  vehement  and  passionate;  and  although  they  were 
tmjust  in  principle  and  sustained  by  monstrous  exaggera- 
tions of  statement,  they  were  not  the  less  potent  as  recruit- 
ing agents  for  Chartism.  There  was  a  profound  distrust 
of  the  middle  class  and  their  leaders.  The  Anti-Corn-law 
agitation  which  was  then  springing  up,  and  which,  one 
might  have  thought,  must  find  its  most  strenuous  support 
among  the  poor  artisans  of  the  towns,  was  regarded  with 
deep  disgust  by  some  of  the  Chartists,  and  with  downright 
hostility  by  others.  A  very  temperate  orator  of  the  Char- 
tists put  the  feeling  of  himself  and  his  fellows  in  clear 
terms.  "  We  do  not  object  to  the  repeal  of  the  Corn 
Laws,"  he  said ;  "  on  the  contrary,  when  we  get  the  Charter 
We  will  repeal  the  Corn  Laws  and  all  the  bad  laws.  But 
if  you  give  up  your  agitation  for  the  Charter  to  help  the 
Free-traders,  they  will  never  help  you  to  get  the  Charter. 
Don't  be  deceived  by  the  middle  classes  again!  You 
helped  them  to  get  the  Reform  Bill,  and  where  are  the  fine 
promises  they  made  you?  Don't  listen  to  their  humbug 
any  more.  Stick  to  your  Charter.  Without  your  votes 
you  are  veritable  slaves."  The  Chartists  believed  them- 
selves abandoned  by  their  natural  leaders.  All  manner 
of  socialist  doctrines  began  to  creep  in  among  them.  Wild 
and  infidel  opinions  were  proclaimed  by  many.  Thomas 
Cooper  tells  one  little  anecdote  which  he  says  fairly  illus- 
trates the  feelings  of  many  of  the  fiercer  spirits  among  the 
artisan  Chartists  in  some  of  the  towns.  He  and  his  friends 
were  holding  a  meeting  one  day  in  Leicester.  A  poor 
religious  stockinger  said :  "  Let  us  be  patient  a  little  longer ; 
surely  God  Almighty  will  help  us  soon."  "  Talk  to  us  no 
more  about  thy  Goddle  Mighty,"  was  the  fierce  cry  that 


96  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

came,  in  reply,  from  one  of  the  audience;  "there  isn't 
one!  If  there  was  one,  he  wouldn't  let  us  suffer  as  we 
do!"  About  the  same  time  a  poor  stockinger  rushed  into 
Cooper's  house,  and  throwing  himself  wildly  on  a  chair, 
exclaimed,  "  I  wish  they  would  hang  me  !  I  have  lived 
on  cold  potatoes  that  were  given  me  these  two  days,  and 
this  morning  I've  eaten  a  raw  potato  for  sheer  hunger. 
Give  me  a  bit  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  coffee,  or  I  shall 
drop!"  Thomas  Cooper's  remark  about  this  time  is  very 
intelligible  and  simple.  It  tells  a  long,  clear  story  about 
Chartism.  "  How  fierce, "  he  says,  "  my  discourses  became 
now  in  the  Market-place  on  Sunday  evenings!  My  heart 
often  burned  with  indignation  I  knew  not  how  to  express. 
I  began,  from  sheer  sympath)',  to  fed  a  tendency  to  glide 
into  the  depraved  thinking  of  some  of  the  stronger  but 
coarser  spirits  among  the  men." 

So  the  agitation  went  on.  We  need  not  follow  it  through 
all  its  incidents.  It  took  in  some  places  the  form  of  in- 
dustrial strikes ;  in  others,  of  socialistic  assemblages.  Its 
fanaticism  had  in  many  instances  a  strong  flavor  of  noble- 
ness and  virtue.  Some  men  under  the  influence  of 
thoughtful  leaders  pledged  themselves  to  total  abstinence 
from  intoxicating  drinks,  in  the  full  belief  that  the  agita- 
tion would  never  succeed  until  the  working-classes  had 
proved  themselves,  by  their  self-control,  to  be  worthy  of 
the  gift  of  freedom.  In  other  instances,  as  has  been 
already  remarked,  the  disappointment  and  despair  of  the 
people  took  the  form  of  infidelity.  There  were  many  riots 
and  disturbances ;  none,  indeed,  of  so  seemingly  rebellious 
a  nature  as  that  of  Frost  and  his  companions,  but  many 
serious  enough  to  spread  great  alarm,  and  to  furnish  fresh 
occasion  for  Government  prosecutions  and  imprisonments. 
Some  of  the  prisoners  seem  to  have  been  really  treated 
with  a  positively  wanton  harshness  and  even  cruelty. 
Thomas  Cooper's  account  of  his  own  sufferings  in  prison 
is  painful  to  read.  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  what  good 
purpose  any  Government  could  have  supposed  the  prison 


Chartism.  97 

authorities  were  serving  by  the  unnecessary  degradation 
and  privation  of  men  who,  whatever  their  errors,  were 
conspicuously  and  transparently  sincere  and  honest. 

It  is  clear  that  at  that  time  the  Chartists,  who  represented 
the  bulk  of  the  artisan  class  in  most  of  the  large  towns, 
did  in  their  very  hearts  believe  that  England  was  ruled 
for  the  benefit  of  aristocrats  and  millionaires  who  were 
absolutely  indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  the  poor.  It  is 
equally  clear  that  most  of  what  are  called  the  ruling  class 
did  really  believe  the  English  workingmen  who  joined 
the  Chartist  movement  to  be  a  race  of  fierce,  unmanage- 
able, and  selfish  communists  who,  if  they  were  allowcG 
their  own  way  for  a  moment,  would  prove  themselves 
determined  to  overthrow  throne,  altar,  and  all  established 
securities  of  society.  An  ignorant  panic  prevailed  on  both 
sides.  England  was  indeed  divided  then,  as  Mr.  Disraeli's 
novel  described  it,  into  two  nations,  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
in  towns  at  least ;  and  each  hated  and  feared  the  other 
with  all  that  unthinking  hate  and  fear  which  hostile  nations 
are  capable  of  showing  even  amidst  all  the  influences  of 
civilization. 

Vol.  I.— 7 


CHAPTER  VI. 

QUESTION    DE    JUPONS, 

Meanwhile  things  were  looking  ill  with  the  Melbourne 
Ministry.  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  addressing  great  meetings 
of  his  followers,  and  declaring  with  much  show  of  justice 
that  he  had  created  anew  the  Conservative  party.  The 
position  of  the  Whigs  would  in  any  case  have  been  difficult. 
Their  mandate,  to  use  the  French  phrase,  seemed  to  be 
exhausted.  They  had  no  new  thing  to  propose.  They 
came  into  power  as  reformers,  and  now  they  had  nothing 
to  offer  in  the  way  of  reform.  It  may  be  taken  as  a  cer- 
tainty that  in  English  politics  reaction  must  always  follow 
advance.  The  Whigs  must  just  then  have  come  in  for  the 
effects  of  reaction.  But  they  had  more  than  that  to  con- 
tend with.  In  our  own  time,  Mr.  Gladstone  had  no  sooner 
passed  his  great  measures  of  reform  than  he  began  to  ex- 
perience the  effects  of  reaction.  But  there  was  a  great 
difference  between  his  situation  and  that  of  the  Whigs 
under  Melbourne.  He  had  not  failed  to  satisfy  the  de- 
mands of  his  followers.  He  had  no  extreme  wing  of  his 
party  clamoring  against  him  on  the  ground  that  he  had 
made  use  of  their  strength  to  help  him  in  carrying  out  as 
much  of  his  programme  as  suited  his  own  coterie,  and  that 
he  had  then  deserted  them.  This  was  the  condition  of 
the  Whigs.  The  more  advanced  Liberals  and  the  whole 
body  of  the  Chartists,  and  the  working-classes  generally, 
detested  and  denounced  them.  Many  of  the  Liberals  had 
had  some  hope  while  Lord  Durham  still  seemed  likely  to 
be  a  political  power,  but  with  the  fading  of  his  influence 
they  lost  all  interest  in  the  Whig  Ministry.     On  the  other 


Question  de  Jupons.  -  99 

hand,  the  support  of  O'Connell  was  a  serious  disadvantage 
to  Melbourne  and  his  party  in  England. 

But  the  Whig  ministers  were  always  adding  by  some 
mistake  or  other  to  the  difficulties  of  their  position.  The 
Jamaica  Bill  put  them  in  great  perplexity.  This  was  a 
measure  brought  in  on  April  9th,  1839,  to  make  temporary 
provision  for  the  government  of  the  island  of  Jamaica,  by 
setting  aside  the  House  of  Assembly  for  five  years,  and 
during  that  time  empowering  the  governor  and  council 
with  three  salaried  commissioners  to  manage  the  affairi- 
of  the  colony.  In  other  words,  the  Melbourne  Ministry 
proposed  to  suspend  for  five  years  the  constitution  of 
Jamaica.  No  body  of  persons  can  be  more  awkwardl}' 
placed  than  a  Whig  Ministry  proposing  to  set  aside  a  con- 
stitutional government  anywhere.  Such  a  proposal  may 
be  a  necessary  measure ;  it  may  be  unavoidable;  but  it 
always  comes  with  a  bad  grace  from  Whigs  or  Liberals, 
and  gives  their  enemies  a  handle  against  them  which  they 
cannot  fail  to  use  to  some  purpose.  What,  indeed,  it  may 
be  plausibly  asked,  is  the  raison  d'itre  of  a  Liberal  Govern- 
ment if  they  have  to  return  to  the  old  Tory  policy  of  sus- 
pended constitutions  and  absolute  law?  When  Rabagas, 
become  minister,  tells  his  master  that  the  only  way  to 
silence  discontent  is  by  the  literal  use  of  the  cannon,  the 
Prince  of  Monaco  remarks  very  naturally  that  if  that  was 
to  be  the  policy,  he  might  as  well  have  kept  to  his  old 
ministers  and  his  absolutism.  So  it  is  with  an  English 
Liberal  Ministry  advising  the  suspension  of  constitutions. 

In  the  case  of  the  Jamaica  Bill  there  was  some  excuse 
for  the  harsh  policy.  After  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the 
former  masters  in  the  island  found  it  very  hard  to  recon- 
cile themselves  to  the  new  condition  of  things.  They 
could  not  all  at  once  understand  that  their  former  slaves 
were  to  be  their  equals  before  the  law.  As  we  have  seen 
much  more  lately  in  the  Southern  States  of  America, 
after  the  civil  war  and  the  emancipation  of  the  negroes, 
there  was  still  a  pertinacious  attempt  made  by  the  planter 


loo  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

class  to  regain  in  substance  the  power  they  had  had  to 
renounce  in  name.  This  was  not  to  be  justified  or  ex- 
cused ;  but,  as  human  nature  is  made,  it  was  not  unnatural. 
On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  Jamaica  negroes  were  too 
ignorant  to  understand  that  they  had  acquired  any  rights; 
others  were  a  little  too  clamorous  in  their  assertion. 
Many  a  planter  worked  his  men  and  whipped  his  women 
just  as  before  the  emancipation,  and  the  victims  did  not 
understand  that  they  had  any  right  to  complain.  Many 
negroes,  again,  were  ignorantly  and  thoughtlessly  "  bump- 
tious,"  to  use  a  vulgar  expression,  in  the  assertion  of  their 
newly-found  equality.  The  imperial  governors  and  offi- 
cials were  generally  and  justly  eager  to  protect  the  negroes ; 
and  the  result  was  constant  quarrel  between  the  Jamaica 
House  of  Assembly  and  the  representatives  of  the  home 
Government.  The  Assembly  became  more  insolent  and 
offensive  every  day.  A  bill,  very  necessary  in  itself,  was 
passed  by  the  imperial  Parliament  for  the  better  regulation 
of  prisons  in  Jamaica,  and  the  House  of  Assembly  refused 
to  submit  to  any  such  legislation.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, the  Melbourne  Ministry  proposed  the  suspension 
of  the  constitution  of  the  island.  The  measure  was 
opposed  not  only  by  Peel  and  the  Conservatives,  but  by 
many  Radicals.  It  was  argued  that  there  were  many 
courses  open  to  the  ministry  short  of  the  high-handed 
proceeding  they  proposed;  and,  in  truth,  there  was  not 
that  confidence  in  the  Melbourne  Ministry  at  all  which 
would  have  enabled  them  to  obtain  from  Parliament  a 
majority  sufficient  to  carry  through  such  a  policy.  The 
ministry  was  weak  and  discredited ;  anybody  might  now 
llirow  a  stone  at  it.  They  only  had  a  majority  of  five  in 
favor  of  their  measure.  This,  of  course,  was  a  virtual 
defeat.  The  ministry  acknowledged  it,  and  resigned. 
Their  defeat  was  a  humiliation;  their  resignation  an  inev- 
itable submission;  but  they  came  back  to  office  almost 
immediately  under  conditions  that  made  the  humiliation 
more  humbling,    and   rendered  their   subsequent   career 


,'  Qiiestion  de  Jupons.  loi 

more  difficult  by  far  than  their  past  struggle  far  existence 
had  been. 

The  return  of  the' Whigs  to  office — for  they  cannot  be 
said  to  have  returned  to  power — came  about  in  a  very  odd 
way.  Gulliver  ought  to  have  had  an  opportunity  of  telling 
such  a  story  to  the  king  of  the  Brobdingnagians,  in  order 
the  better  to  impress  him  with  a  clear  idea  of  the  logical 
beauty  of  constitutional  government.  It  was  an  entirely 
new  illustration  of  the  old  cherchcz  la  femme  principle,  the 
femme  in  this  case,  however,  being  altogether  a  passive 
and  innocent  cause  of  trouble.  The  famous  controversy 
known  as  the  "  Bedchamber  Question"  made  a  way  back 
for  the  Whigs  into  place.  When  Lord  Melbourne  re- 
signed, the  Queen  sent  for  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  who 
advised  her  to  apply  to  Sir  Robert  Peel,  for  the  reason  that 
the  chief  difficulties  of  a  Conservative  Government  would 
be  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Queen  sent  for  Peel, 
and  when  he  came,  told  him,  with  a  simple  and  girlish 
frankness,  that  she  was  sorry  to  have  to  part  with  her  late 
ministers,  of  whose  conduct  she  entirely  approved,  but 
that  she  bowed  to  constitutional  usage.  This  must  have 
been  rather  an  astonishing  beginning  to  the  grave  and 
formal  Peel ;  but  he  was  not  a  man  to  think  any  worse  of 
the  candid  young  sovereign  for  her  outspoken  ways.  The 
negotiations  went  on  very  stnoothly  as  to  the  colleagues 
Peel  meant  to  recommend  to  her  Majesty,  until  he  hap- 
pened to  notice  the  composition  of  the  royal  household  as 
regarded  the  ladies  most  closely  in  attendance  on  the 
Queen.  For  example,  he  found  that  the  wife  of  Lord 
Normanby  and  the  sister  of  Lord  Morpeth  were  the  two 
ladies  in  closest  attendance  on  her  Majesty.  Now  it  has 
to  be  borne  in  mind — it  was  proclaimed  again  and  again 
during  the  negotiations — that  the  chief  difficulty  of  the 
Conservatives  would  necessarily  be  in  Ireland,  where  their 
policy  would  be  altogether  opposed  to  that  of  the  Whigs. 
Lord  Normanby  had  been  Lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland  under 
the  Whigs,  and  Lord  Morpeth,  whom  we  can  all  remember 


102  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

as  the  amiable  and  accomplished  Lord  Carlisle  of  later 
time,  Irish  Secretary.  It  certainly  could  not  be  satisfactory 
for  Peel  to  try  to  work  a  new  Irish  policy  while  the  closest 
household  companions  of  the  Queen  were  the  wife  and 
sister  of  the  displaced  statesmen  who  directly  represented 
the  policy  he  had  to  supersede.  Had  this  point  of  view 
been  made  clear  to  the  sovereign  at  first,  it  is  hardly  pos- 
sible that  any  serious  difficulty  could  have  arisen.  The 
Queen  must  have  seen  the  obvious  reasonableness  of  Peel's 
request;  nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  two  ladies  in 
question  could  have  desired  to  hold  their  places  under 
such  circumstances.  But  unluckily  some  misunderstand- 
ing took  place  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  conversations 
on  this  point.  Peel  only  desired  to  press  for  the  retire- 
ment of  the  ladies  holding  the  higher  offices;  he  did  not 
intend  to  ask  for  any  change  affecting  a  place  lower  in 
official  rank  than  that  of  lady  of  the  bedchamber.  But 
somehow  or  other  he  conveyed  to  the  mind  of  the  Queen 
a  different  idea.  She  thought  he  meant  to  insist,  as  a 
matter  of  principle,  upon  the  removal  of  all  her  familiar 
attendants  and  household  associates.  Under  this  impres- 
sion she  consulted  Lord  John  Russell,  who  advised  her  on 
what  he  understood  to  be  the  state  of  the  facts.  On  his 
advice,  the  Queen  stated  in  reply  that  she  could  not  "  con- 
sent to  a  course  which  she  conceives  to  be  contrary  to 
usage  and  is  repugnant  to  her  feelings. "  Sir  Robert  Peel 
held  firm  to  his  stipulation ;  and  the  chance  of  his  then 
forming  a  ministry  was  at  an  end.  Lord  Melbourne  and 
his  colleagues  had  to  be  recalled;  and  at  a  cabinet  meet- 
ing they  adopted  a  minute  declaring  it  reasonable  "  that 
the  great  offices  of  the  Court  and  situations  in  the  house- 
hold held  by  members  of  Parliament  should  be  included 
in  the  political  arrangements  made  on  a  change  in  the 
Administration ;  but  they  are  not  of  opinion  that  a  similar 
principle  should  be  applied  or  extended  to  the  offices  held 
by  ladies  in  her  Majesty's  household." 

The  matter  was  naturally  made  the  subject  of  explana- 


Question  de  Jiipons.  \o} 

tion  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament.  Sir  Robert  Peel  was 
undoubtedly  right  in  his  view  of  the  question,  and  if  he 
had  been  clearly  understood  the  right  could  hardly  have 
been  disputed;  but  he  defended  his  position  in  language 
of  what  now  seems  rather  ludicrous  exaggeration.  He 
treated  this  question  dejupons  as  if  it  were  of  the  last  impor- 
tance, not  alone  to  the  honor  of  the  ministry,  but  even  to 
the  safety  of  the  realm.  "  I  ask  you,"  he  said,  "  to  go  back 
to  other  times:  take  Pitt  or  Fox,  or  any  other  minister  of 
this  proud  country,  and  answer  for  yourselves  the  ques- 
tion, is  it  fitting  that  one  man  shall  be  the  minister, 
responsible  for  the  most  arduous  charge  that  can  fall  to 
the  lot  of  man,  and  that  the  wife  of  the  other — that  other 
his  most  formidable  political  enemy — shall,  with  his  ex- 
press consent,  hold  office  in  immediate  attendance  on  the 
sovereign?"  "Oh,  no!"  he  exclaimed,  in  an  outburst  of 
indignant  eloquence.  "  I  felt  that  it  was  impossible ;  I 
could  not  consent  to  this.  Feelings  more  powerful  than 
reasoning  told  me  that  it  was  not  for  my  own  honor  or  for 
the  public  interests  that  I  should  consent  to  be  minister 
of  England."  This  high-flown  language  seems  oddly 
out  of  place  on  the  lips  of  a  statesman  who,  of  all  his  con- 
temporaries, was  the  least  apt  to  indulge  in  bursts  of 
overwrought  sentiment.  Lord  Melbourne,  on  the  other 
hand,  defended  his  action  in  the  House  of  Lords  in  lan- 
guage of  equal  exaggeration.  "I  resume  office,"  he  said, 
"unequivocally  and  solely  for  this  reason,  that  I  will  not 
desert  my  sovereign  in  a  situation  of  difficulty  and  distress, 
especially  when  a  demand  is  made  upon  her  Majesty  with 
which  I  think  she  ought  not  to  comply — a  demand  incon- 
sistent with  her  personal  honor,  and  which,  if  acquiesced 
in,  would  render  her  reign  liable  to  all  the  changes  and 
variations  of  political  parties,  and  make  her  domestic  life 
one  constant  scene  of  unhappiness  and  discomfort." 

In  the  country  the  incident  created  great  excitement. 
Some  Liberals  bluntly  insisted  that  it  was  not  right  in 
such  a  matter  to  consult  the  feelings  of  the  sovereign  at 


104  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

all,  and  that  the  advice  of  the  minister,  and  his  idea  of 
what  was  for  the  good  of  the  country,  ought  alone  to  be 
considered.  On  the  other  hand,  O'Connell  burst  into 
impassioned  language  of  praise  and  delight,  as  he  dwelt 
upon  the  decision  of  the  Queen,  and  called  upon  the  Pow- 
ers above  to  bless  "  the  young  creature — that  creature  of 
only  nineteen,  as  pure  as  she  is  exalted,"  who  consulted 
not  her  head,  but  "  the  overflowing  feelings  of  her  young 
heart."  "Those  excellent  women  who  had  been  so  long 
attached  to  her,  who  had  nursed  and  tended  to  her  wants 
in  her  childhood,  who  had  watched  over  her  in  her  sick- 
ness, whose  eyes  beamed  with  delight  as  they  saw  her  in- 
creasing daily  in  beauty  and  in  loveliness — when  they 
were  threatened  to  be  forced  away  from  her — her  heart 
told  her  that  she  could  as  well  part  with  that  heart  itself 
as  with  those  whom  it  held  so  dear."  Feargus  O'Connor 
went  a  good  deal  farther,  however,  when  he  boldly  de- 
clared that  he  had  excellent  authority  for  the  statement 
that  if  the  Tories  had  got  the  young  Queen  into  their 
hands  by  the  agency  of  the  new  ladies  of  the  bedchamber, 
they  had  a  plan  for  puttings  her  out  of  the  way  and  placing 
"  the  bloody  Cumberland"  on  the  throne  in  her  stead.  In 
O'Connell's  case,  no  mystery  was  made  of  the  fact  that  he 
believed  the  ladies  actually  surrounding  the  young  Queen 
to  be  friendly  to  what  he  considered  the  cause  of  Ireland ; 
and  that  he  was  satisfied  Peel  and  the  Tories  were  against  it. 
For  the  wild  talk  represented  by  the  words  of  Feargus 
O'Connor,  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  that,  frenzied  and 
foolish  as  it  must  seem  now  to  us,  and  as  it  must  even 
then  have  seemed  to  all  rational  beings,  it  had  the  firm 
acceptance  of  large  masses  of  people  throughout  the  coun- 
try, who  persisted  in  seeing  in  Peel's  pleadings  for  the 
change  of  the  bedchamber  women  the  positive  evidence  of 
an  unscrupulous  Tory  to  get  possession  of  the  Queen's 
person,  not  indeed  for  the  purpose  of  violently  altering 
the  succession,  but  in  the  hope  of  poisoning  her  mind 
against  all  Liberal  opinions. 


Question  de  Jupons.  105 

Lord  Brougham  was  not  likely  to  lose  so  good  an  oppor- 
tunity of  attacking  Lord  Melbourne  and  his  colleagues. 
He  insisted  that  Lord  Melbourne  had  sacrificed  Liberal 
principles  and  the  interests  of  the  country  to  the  private 
feelings  of  the  sovereign.  "I  thought,"  he  declared,  in 
a  burst  of  eloquent  passion,  "  that  we  belonged  to  a  coun- 
try in  which  the  government  by  the  Crown  and  the  wis- 
dom of  Parliament  was  everything,  and  the  personal 
feelings  of  the  sovereign  were  absolutely  not  to  be  named 
at  the  same  time.  ...  I  little  thought  to  have  lived  to 
hear  it  said  by  the  Whigs  of  1839,  'Let  us  rally  round  the 
Queen;  nevermind  the  House  of  Commons;  nevermind 
measures;  throw  principles  to  the  dogs;  leave  pledges 
unredeemed;  but  for  God's  sake  rally  round  the  throne.' 
Little  did  I  think  the  day  would  come  when  I  should  hear 
such  language,  not  from  the  unconstitutional,  place-hunt- 
ing, king-loving  Tories,  who  thought  the  public  was  made 
for  the  king,  not  the  king  for  the  public,  but  from  the 
Whigs  themselves!  The  Jamaica  Bill,  said  to  be  a  most 
important  measure,  had  been  brought  forward.  The 
Government  staked  their  existence  upon  it.  They  were 
not  able  to  carry  it ;  they  therefore  conceived  they  had 
lost  the  confidence  of  the  House  of  Commons.  They 
thought  it  a  measure  of  paramount  necessity  then.  Is  it 
less  necessary  now?  Oh,  but  that  is  altered!  The  Ja- 
maica question  is  to  be  new-fashioned;  principles  are  to  be 
given  up,  and  all  because  of  two  ladies  of  the  bedchamber. " 

Nothing  could  be  more  tmdesirable  than  the  position 
in  which  Lord  Melbourne  and  his  colleagues  had  allowed 
the  sovereign  to  place  herself.  The  more  people  in  gen- 
eral came  to  think  over  the  matter,  the  more  clearly  it 
was  seen  that  Peel  was  in  the  right,  although  he  had  not 
made  himself  understood  at  first,  and  had,  perhaps,  not 
shown  all  through  enough  of  consideration  for  the  novelty 
of  the  young  sovereign's  position,  or  for  the  difficulty  of 
finding  a  conclusive  precedent  on  such  a  question,  seeing 
that  since  the  principle  of  ministerial  responsibility  had 


io6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

come  to  be  recognized  among  ns  in  its  genuine  sense  there 
never  before  had  been  a  woman  on  the  throne.  But  no  one 
could  deliberately  maintain  the  position  at  first  taken  up 
by  the  Whigs ;  and,  in  point  of  fact,  the)'  were  soon  glad 
to  drop  it  as  quickly  and  quietly  as  possible.  The  whole 
question,  it  may  be  said  at  once,  was  afterward  settled  by 
a  sensible  compromise  which  the  Prince  Consort  suggested. 
It  was  agreed  that  on  a  change  of  ministry  the  Queen 
would  listen  to  any  representation  from  the  incoming 
Prime-minister  as  to  the  composition  of  her  household, 
and  would  arrange  for  the  retirement,  "of  their  own 
accord,"  of  any  ladies  who  were  so  closely  related  to  the 
leaders  of  Opposition  as  to  render  their  presence  incon- 
venient. The  Whigs  came  back  to  office  utterly  discred- 
ited. They  had  to  tinker  up  somehow  a  new  Jamaica  Bill. 
They  had  declared  that  they  could  not  remain  in  office 
unless  they  were  allowed  to  deal  in  a  certain  way  with 
Jamaica;  and  now  that  they  were  back  again  in  office, 
they  could  not  avoid  trying  to  do  something  with  the 
Jamaica  business.  They,  therefore,  introduced  a  new  bill, 
which  was  a  mere  compromise  put  together  in  the  hope  of 
its  being  allowed  to  pass.  It  was  allowed  to  pass,  after  a 
fashion;  that  is,  when  the  Opposition  in  the  House  of 
Lords  had  tinkered  it  and  amended  it  at  their  pleasure. 
The  bedchamber  question,  in  fact,  had  thrown  Jamaica 
out  of  perspective.  The  unfortunate  island  must  do  the 
best  it  could  now;  in  this  country  statesmen  had  graver 
matter  to  think  of.  Sir  Robert  Peel  could  not  govern  with 
Lady  Norman  by ;  the  Whigs  would  not  govern  without 
her. 

It  does  not  seem  by  any  means  clear,  however,  that  Lord 
Melbourne  and  his  colleagues  deserved  the  savage  censure 
of  Lord  Brougham  merely  for  having  returned  to  office 
and  given  up  their  original  position  with  regard  to  the 
Jamaica  Bill.  What  else  remained  to  be  done?  If  they 
had  refused  to  come  back,  the  only  result  would  have  been 
that  Peel  must  have  become  Prime-minister,  with  a  dis- 


Question  de  Jupons.  107 

tinct  minority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Peel  could  not 
have  held  his  ground  there,  except  by  the  favor  and 
mercy  of  his  opponents ;  and  those  were  not  merciful  days 
in  politics.  He  would  only  have  taken  office  to  be  called 
■upon  at  once  to  resign  it  by  some  adverse  vote  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  state  of  things  seems,  in  this 
respect,  to  be  not  unlike  that  which  existed  when  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  defeated  on  the  Irish  University  Bill  in 
1873.  Mr.  Gladstone  resigned,  or  rather  tendered  his 
resignation;  and  by  his  advice  her  Majesty  invited  Mr. 
Disraeli  to  form  a  cabinet.  Mr.  Disraeli  did  not  see  his 
way  to  undertake  the  government  of  the  country  with  the 
existing  House  of  Commons;  and  as  the  conditions  under 
which  he  was  willing  to  undertake  the  duty  were  not  con- 
veniently attainable,  the  negotiation  came  to  an  end.  The 
Queen  sent  again  for  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  consented  to 
resume  his  place  as  Prime-minister.  If  Lord  Melbourne 
returned  to  office  with  the  knowledge  that  he  could  not 
carry  the  Jamaica  Bill,  which  he  had  declared  to  be  neces- 
sary, Mr.  Gladstone  resumed  his  place  at  the  head  of  his 
ministry  without  the  remotest  hope  of  being  able  to  carry 
his  Irish  University  measure.  No  one  ever  found  fault 
with  Mr.  Gladstone  for  having,  under  the  circumstances, 
done  the  best  he  could,  and  consented  to  meet  the  request 
of  the  sovereign  and  the  convenience  of  the  public  service 
by  again  taking  on  himself  the  responsibility  of  govern- 
ment, although  the  measure  on  which  he  had  declared  he 
would  stake  the  existence  of  his  ministry  had  been  rejected 
by  the  House  of  Commons. 

Still,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Melbourne  Govern- 
ment were  prejudiced  in  the  public  mind  by  these  events, 
and  by  the  attacks  for  which  they  gave  so  large  an  oppor- 
tunity. The  feeling  in  some  parts  of  the  country  was  still 
sentimentally  with  the  Queen.  At  many  a  dinner-table  it 
became  the  fashion  to  drink  the  health  of  her  Majesty 
with  a  punning  addition,  not  belonging  to  an  order  of  wit 
any  higher  than  that  which  in  other  days  toasted  the  King 


io8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

**  over  the  water ;"  or  prayed  of  heaven  to  "  send  this  crumb 
well  down."  The  Queen  was  toasted  as  the  sovereign  of 
spirit  who  "  would  not  let  her  belles  be  peeled. "  But  the 
ministry  were  almost  universally  believed  to  have  placed 
themselves  in  a  ridiculous  light,  and  to  have  crept  again 
into  office,  as  an  able  writer  puts  it,  "  behind  the  petticoats 
of  the  ladies  in  waiting."  The  death  of  Lady  Flora  Hast- 
ings, which  occurred  almost  immediately,  tended  further 
to  arouse  a  feeling  of  dislike  to  the  Whigs.  This  melan- 
choly event  does  not  need  any  lengthened  comment.  A 
young  lady  who  belonged  to  the  household  of  the  Duchess 
of  Kent  fell  under  an  unfounded,  but,  in  the  circumstances, 
not  wholly  unreasonable,  suspicion.  It  was  the  classic 
story  of  Calisto,  Diana's  unhappy  nymph,  reversed.  Lady 
Flora  was  proved  to  be  innocent;  but  her  death,  immi- 
nent probably  in  any  case  from  the  disease  which  had 
fastened  on  her,  was  doubtless  hastened  by  the  humiliation 
to  which  she  had  been  subjected.  It  does  not  seem  that 
any  one  was  to  blame  in  the  matter.  The  ministry  cer- 
tainly do  not  appear  to  have  done  anything  for  which  they 
could  fairly  be  reproached.  No  one  can  be  surprised  that 
those  who  surrounded  the  Queen  and  the  Duchess  of  Kent 
should  have  taken  some  pains  to  inquire  into  the  truth  or 
falsehood  of  scandalous  rumors,  for  which  there  might 
have  appeared  to  be  some  obvious  justification.  But  the 
whole  story  was  so  sad  and  shocking;  the  death  of  the 
poor  young  lady  followed  with  such  tragic  rapidity  upon 
the  establishment  of  her  innocence;  the  natural  complaints 
of  her  mother  were  so  loud  and  impassioned,  that  the 
ministers  who  had  to  answer  the  mother's  appeals  were 
unavoidably  placed  in  an  invidious  and  a  painful  position. 
The  demands  of  the  Marchioness  of  Hastings  for  redress 
were  unreasonable.  They  endeavored  to  make  out  the 
existence  of  a  cruel  conspiracy  against  Lady  Flora,  and 
called  for  the  peremptory  dismissal  and  disgrace  of  the 
eminent  court  physician,  who  had  merely  performed  a 
most  painful  duty,  and  whose  report  had  been  the  especial 


Question  de  Jupons.  109 

means  of  establishing  the  injustice  of  the  suspicions  which 
were  directed  against  her.  But  it  was  a  damaging  duty 
for  a  minister  to  have  to  write  to  the  distracted  mother,  as 
Lord  Melbourne  found  it  necessary  to  do,  telling  her  that 
her  demand  was  "  so  unprecedented  and  objectionable, 
that  even  the  respect  due  to  your  ladyship's  sex,  rank, 
family,  and  character  would  not  justify  me  in  more,  if, 
indeed,  it  authorize  so  much,  than  acknowledging  that 
letter  for  the  sole  purpose  of  acquainting  your  ladyship 
that  I  have  received  it."  The  "  Palace  scandal,"  as  it  was 
called,  became  known  shortly  before  the  dispute  about  the 
ladies  of  the  bedchamber.  The  death  of  Lady  Flora 
Hastings  happened  soon  after  it.  It  is  not  strictly  in 
logical  propriety  that  such  events,  or  their  rapid  succes- 
sion, should  tend  to  bring  into  disrepute  the  ministry,  who 
can  only  be  regarded  as  their  historical  contemporaries. 
But  the  world  must  change  a  great  deal  before  ministers 
are  no  longer  held  accountable  in  public  opinion  for  any- 
thing but  the  events  over  which  they  can  be  shown  to  have 
some  control. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    queen's    marriage. 

On  January  i6th,  1840,  the  Queen,  opening  Parliament 
in  person,  announced  her  intention  to  marry  her  cousin, 
Prince  Albert  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha — a  step  which  she 
trusted  would  be  "  conducive  to  the  interests  of  my  people 
as  well  as  to  my  own  domestic  happiness."  In  the  discus- 
sion which  followed  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Sir  Robert 
Peel  observed  that  her  Majesty  had  "  the  singular  good 
fortune  to  be  able  to  gratify  her  private  feelings,  while 
she  performs  her  public  duty,  and  to  obtain  the  best 
guarantee  for  happiness  by  contracting  an  alliance  founded 
on  affection."  Peel  spoke  the  simple  truth ;  it  was,  indeed, 
a  marriage  founded  on  affection.  No  marriage  contracted 
in  the  humblest  class  could  have  been  more  entirely  a 
union  of  love,  and  more  free  from  what  might  be  called 
selfish  and  worldly  considerations.  The  Queen  had  for  a 
long  time  loved  her  cousin.  He  was  nearly  her  own  age, 
the  Queen  being  the  elder  by  three  months  and  two  or 
three  days.  Francis  Charles  Augustus  Albert  Emmanuel 
was  the  full  name  of  the  young  Prince.  He  was  the  second 
son  of  Ernest,  Duke  of  Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld,  and  of  his 
wife  Louisa,  daughter  of  Augustus,  Duke  of  Saxe-Gotha- 
Altenberg.  Prince  Albert  was  born  at  the  Rosenau,  one 
of  his  father's  residences,  near  Coburg,  on  August  26th, 
18 1 9.  The  court  historian  notices  with  pardonable  com- 
placency the  "remarkable  coincidence" — easily  explained, 
surely — that  the  same  accoucheuse,  Madame  Siebold,  assisted 
at  the  birth  of  Prince  Albert,  and  of  the  Queen  some  three 
months  before,  and  that  the  Prince  was  baptized  by  the 
clergyman,   Professor  Genzler,  who  had  the  year  before 


The  Queen's  Marriage.  .  ill 

officiated  at  the  marriage  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of 
Kent.  A  marriage  between  the  Princess  Victoria  and 
Prince  Albert  had  been  thought  of  as  desirable  among  the 
families  on  both  sides,  but  it  was  always  wisely  resolved 
that  nothing  should  be  said  to  the  young  Princess  on  the 
subject  unless  she  herself  showed  a  distinct  liking  for  her 
cousin.  In  1836  Prince  Albert  was  brought  by  his  father  to 
England,  and  made  the  personal  acquaintance  of  the  Prin- 
cess, and  she  seems  at  once  to  have  been  drawn  toward 
him  in  the  manner  which  her  family  and  friends  would 
most  have  desired.  Three  years  later  the  Prince  again 
came  to  England,  and  the  Queen,  in  a  letter  to  her  uncle, 
the  King  of  the  Belgians,  wrote  of  him  in  the  warmest 
terms.  "Albert's  beauty,"  she  said,  "is  most  striking, 
and  he  is  most  amiable  and  unaffected — in  short,  very 
fascinating."  Not  many  days  after  she  wrote  to  another 
friend  and  faithful  counsellor,  the  Baron  Stockmar,  to 
say,  "  I  do  feel  so  guilty  I  know  not  how  to  begin  my  let- 
ter; but  I  think  the  news  it  will  contain  will  be  sufficient 
to  insure  your  forgiveness.  Albert  has  completely  won 
my  heart,  and  all  was  settled  between  us  this  morning." 
The  Queen  had  just  before  informed  Lord  Melbourne  of 
her  intention,  and  Lord  Melbourne,  it  is  needless  to  say, 
expressed  his  decided  approval.  There  was  no  one  to 
disapprove  of  such  a  marriage. 

Prince  Albert  was  a  young  man  to  win  the  heart  of  any 
girl.  He  was  singularly  handsome,  graceful,  and  gifted. 
In  princes,  as  we  know,  a  small  measure  of  beauty  and 
accomplishment  suffices  to  throw  courtiers  and  court  ladies 
into  transports  of  admiration ;  but  had  Prince  Albert  been 
the  son  of  a  farmer  or  a  butler,  he  must  have  been  ad- 
mired for  his  singular  personal  attractions.  He  had  had 
a  sound  and  a  varied  ediication.  He  had  been  brought  up 
as  if  he  were  to  be  a  professional  musician,  a  professional 
chemist  or  botanist,  and  a  professor  of  history  and  belles- 
lettres  and  the  fine  arts.  The  scientific  and  the  literary 
were  remarkably  blended  in  his  bringing-up;  remarkably, 


112  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

that  is  to  say,  for  some  half-century  ago,  when  even  in 
Germany  a  system  of  education  seldom  aimed  at  being 
totus,  teres  atque  I'otundus.  He  had  begun  to  study  the 
constitutional  history  of  States,  and  was  preparing  him- 
self to  take  an  interest  in  politics.  There  was  much  of 
the  practical  and  businesslike  about  him,  as  he  showed  in 
after-life ;  he  loved  farming,  and  took  a  deep  interest  in 
machinery  and  in  the  growth  of  industrial  science.  He 
was  a  sort  of  combination  of  the  troubadour,  the  savant, 
and  the  man  of  business.  His  tastes  were  for  a  quiet, 
domestic,  and  unostentatious  life — a  life  of  refined  culture, 
of  happy,  calm  evenings,  of  art  and  poetry  and  genial 
communion  with  Nature.  He  was  made  happy  by  the 
songs  of  birds,  and  delighted  in  sitting  alone  and  playing 
the  organ.  But  there  was  in  him,  too,  a  great  deal  of  the 
political  philosopher.  He  loved  to  hear  political  and  other 
questions  well  argued  out,  and  once  observed  that  a  false 
argument  jarred  on  his  nerves  as  much  as  a  false  note  in 
music.  He  seems  to  have  had  from  his  youth  an  all-per- 
vading sense  of  duty.  So  far  as  we  can  guess,  he  was 
almost  absolutely  free  from  the  ordinary  follies,  not  to  say 
sins,  of  youth.  Young  as  he  was  when  he  married  the 
Queen,  he  devoted  himself  at  once  to  what  he  conscien- 
tiously believed  to  be  the  duties  of  his  station  with  a  self- 
control  and  self-devotion  rare  even  among  the  aged,  and 
almost  unknown  in  youth.  He  gave  up  every  habit, 
however  familiar  and  dear,  every  predilection,  no  matter 
how  sweet,  every  indulgence  of  sentiment  or  amusement 
that  in  any  way  threatened  to  interfere  with  the  steadfast 
performance  of  the  part  he  had  assigned  to  himself.  No 
man  ever  devoted  himself  more  faithfully  to  the  difficult 
duties  of  a  high  and  a  new  situation,  or  kept  more  strictly 
to  his  resolve.  It  was  no  task  to  him  to  be  a  tender  hus- 
band and  a  loving  father.  This  was  a  part  of  his  sweet, 
pure,  and  affectionate  nature.  It  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  any  other  queen  ever  had  a  married  life  so  happy 
as  that  of  Queen  Victoria. 


The  Queen's  Marriage.  w) 

The  marriage  of  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  took  place 
on  February  loth,  1840.  The  reception  given  by  the  people 
in  general  to  the  Prince  on  his  landing  in  England  a  few 
days  before  the  ceremony,  and  on  the  day  of  the  marriage, 
was  cordial,  and  even  enthusiastic.  But  it  is  not  certain 
whether  there  was  a  very  cordial  feeling  to  the  Prince 
among  all  classes  of  politicians.  A  rumor  of  the  most 
absurd  kind  had  got  abroad  in  certain  circles  that  the 
young  Albert  was  not  a  Protestant — that  he  was,  in  fact, 
a  member  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  In  a  different  circle 
the  belief  was  curiously  cherished  that  the  Prince  was  a 
free-thinker  in  matters  of  religion,  and  a  radical  in  poli- 
tics. Somewhat  unfortunately,  the  declaration  of  the 
intended  marriage  to  the  privy  council  did  not  mention 
the  fact  that  Albert  was  a  Protestant  Prince.  The  cabinet 
no  doubt  thought  that  the  leaders  of  public  opinion  on  all 
sides  of  politics  would  have  had  historical  knowledge 
among  them  to  teach  them  that  Prince  Albert  belonged  to 
that  branch  of  the  Saxon  family  which  since  the  Reforma- 
tion had  been  conspicuously  Protestant.  "  There  has  not, " 
Prince  Albert  himself  wrote  to  the  Queen  on  December 
7th,  1839,  "been  a  single  Catholic  princess  introduced 
into  the  Coburg  family  since  the  appearance  of  Liither  in 
1521.  Moreover,  the  Elector  Frederick  the  Wise  of  Saxony 
was  the  very  first  Protestant  that  ever  lived."  No  doubt 
the  ministry  thought  also  that  the  constitutional  rule 
which  forbids  an  English  sovereign  to  marry  with  a 
Roman  Catholic  under  penalty  of  forfeiting  the  crown, 
would  be  regarded  as  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  when  they 
announced  the  Queen's  approaching  marriage  it  must  be 
a  marriage  with  a  Protestant.  All  this  assumption,  how- 
ever reasonable  and  natural,  did  not  find  warrant  in  the 
events  that  actually  took  place.  It  would  have  been  bet- 
ter, of  course,  if  the  Government  had  assumed  that  Parlia- 
ment and  the  public  generally  knew  nothing  about  the 
Prince  and  his  ancestry,  or  the  constitutional  penalties  for  a 
member  of  the  Royal  Family  marrying  a  Catholic,  and  had 
Vol.  I.— 8 


114  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

formally  announced  that  the  choice  of  Queen  Victoria  had 
happily  fallen  on  a  Protestant.  The  wise  and  foreseeing 
Leopold,  King  of  the  Belgians,  had  recommended  that  the 
fact  should  be  specifically  mentioned ;  but  it  was,  perhaps, 
a  part  of  Lord  Melbourne's  indolent  good-nature  to  take  it 
for  granted  that  people  generally  would  be  calm  and  rea- 
sonable, and  that  all  would  go  right  without  interruption 
or  cavil.  He  therefore  acted  on  the  assumption  that  any 
formal  mention  of  Prince  Albert's  Protestantism  would 
be  superfluous;  and  neither  in  the  declaration  to  the  privy 
council  nor  in  the  announcement  to  Parliament  was  a  word 
said  upon  the  subject.  The  result  was  that  in  the  debate 
on  the  address  in  the  House  of  Lords  a  somewhat  un- 
seemly altercation  took  place,  an  altercation  the  more  to 
be  regretted  because  it  might  have  been  so  easily  spared. 
The  question  was  bluntly  raised  by  no  less  a  person  than 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  whether  the  future  husband  of 
the  Queen  was  or  was  not  a  Protestant.  The  Duke  actually 
charged  the  ministry  with  having  purposely  left  out  the 
word  "  Protestant"  in  the  announcements,  in  order  that 
they  might  not  offend  their  Irish  and  Catholic  supporters, 
and  by  the  very  charge  did  much  to  strengthen  the  popu- 
lar feeling  against  the  statesmen  who  were  supposed  to 
be  kept  in  office  by  virtue  of  the  patronage  of  O'Connell. 
The  Duke  moved  that  the  word  "  Protestant"  be  inserted 
in  the  congratulatory  address  to  the  Queen,  and  he  carried 
his  point,  although  Lord  Melbourne  held  to  the  opinion 
that  the  word  was  unnecessary  in  describing  a  Prince  who 
was  not  only  a  Protestant,  but  descended  from  the  most 
Protestant  family  in  Europe.  The  lack  of  judgment  and 
tact  on  the  part  of  the  ministry  was  never  more  clearly 
shown  than  in  the  original  omission  of  the  word. 

Another  disagreeable  occurrence  was  the  discussion  that 
took  place  when  the  bill  for  the  naturalization  of  the 
Prince  was  brought  before  the  House  of  Lords.  The  bill 
in  its  title  merely  set  out  the  proposal  to  provide  for  the 
naturalization  of  the  Prince ;  but  it  contained  a  clause  to 


The  Queen's  Marriase, 


'6' 


115 


give  him  precedence  for  life  "  next  after  her  Majesty,  in 
Parliament  or  elsewhere,  as  her  Majesty  might  think 
proper."  A  great  deal  of  objection  was  raised  by  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  and  Lord  Brougham  to  this  clause 
on  its  own  merits;  but,  as  was  natural,  the  objections 
were  infinitely  aggravated  by  the  singular  want  of  judg- 
ment, and  even  of  common  propriety,  which  could  intro- 
duce a  clause  conferring  on  the  sovereign  powers  so  large 
and  so  new  into  a  mere  naturalization  bill,  without  any 
previous  notice  to  Parliament.  The  matter  was  ultimately 
settled  by  allowing  the  bill  to  remain  a  simple  naturaliza- 
tion measure,  and  leaving  the  question  of  precedence  to 
be  dealt  with  by  Royal  prerogative.  Both  the  great 
political  parties  concurred,  without  further  difficulty,  in 
an  arrangement  by  which  it  was  provided  in  letters  patent 
that  the  Prince  should  thenceforth  upon  all  occasions,  and 
in  all  meetings,  except  when  otherwise  provided  by  Act 
of  Parliament,  have  precedence  next  to  the  Queen.  There 
never  would  have  been  any  difficulty  in  the  matter  if  the 
ministry  had  acted  with  any  discretion ;  but  it  would  be 
absurd  to  expect  that  a  great  nation,  whose  constitutional 
system  is  built  up  of  precedents,  should  agree  at  once  and 
without  demur  to  every  new  arrangement  which  it  might 
seem  convenient  to  a  ministry  to  make  in  a  hurry.  Yet 
another  source  of  dissatisfaction  to  the  palace  and  the 
people  was  created  by  the  manner  in  which  the  ministry 
took  upon  themselves  to  bring  forward  the  proposition  for 
the  settlement  of  an  annuity  on  the  Prince.  In  former 
cases — that,  for  example,  of  Queen  Charlotte,  Queen 
Adelaide,  and  Prince  Leopold  on  his  marriage  with  the 
Princess  Charlotte — the  annuity  granted  had  been  ^50,000. 
It  so  happened,  however,  that  the  settlement  to  be  made 
on  Prince  Albert  came  in  times  of  great  industrial  and 
commercial  distress.  The  days  had  gone  by  when  econ- 
omy in  the  House  of  Commons  was  looked  upon  as  an 
ignoble  principle,  and  when  loyalty  to  the  sovereign  was 
believed  to  bind  members  of  Parliament  to  grant,  without 


Ii6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

a  murmur  of  discussion,  any  sums  that  might  be  asked  by 
the  minister  in  the  sovereign's  name.  Parliament  was 
beginning  to  feel  more  thoroughly  its  responsibility  as  the 
guardian  of  the  nation's  resources,  and  it  was  no  longer 
thought  a  fine  thing  to  give  away  the  money  of  the  tax- 
payer with  magnanimous  indifference.  It  was,  therefore, 
absurd  on  the  part  of  the  ministry  to  suppose  that  because 
great  sums  of  money  had  been  voted  without  question  on 
former  occasions,  they  would  be  voted  without  question 
now.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  whole  matter  might 
have  been  settled  without  controversy  if  the  ministry  had 
shown  any  judgment  whatever  in  their  conduct  of  the 
business.  In  our  day  the  ministry  would  at  once  have 
consulted  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition.  In  all  matters 
where  the  grant  of  money  to  any  one  connected  with  the 
sovereign  is  concerned,  it  is  now  understood  that  the  gift 
shall  come  with  the  full  concurrence  of  both  parties  in 
Parliament.  The  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons  would 
probably,  by  arrangement,  propose  the  grant,  and  the 
leader  of  the  Opposition  would  second  it.  In  the  case  of 
the  annuity  to  Prince  Albert,  the  ministry  had  the  almost 
incredible  folly  to  bring  forward  their  proposal  without 
having  invited  in  any  way  the  concurrence  of  the  Opposi- 
tion. They  introduced  the  proposal  without  discretion; 
they  conducted  the  discussion  on  it  without  temper. 
They  answered  the  most  reasonable  objections  with  impu- 
tations of  want  of  loyalty ;  and  they  gave  some  excuse  for 
the  suspicion  that  they  wished  to  provoke  the  Opposition 
into  some  expression  that  might  make  them  odious  to  the 
Queen  and  the  Prince.  Mr.  Hume,  the  economist,  pro- 
posed that  the  annuity  be  reduced  from  ^^5 0,000  to  ^21,- 
000.  This  was  negatived.  Thereupon  Colonel  Sibthorp, 
a  once  famous  Tory  fanatic  of  the  most  eccentric  manners 
and  opinions,  proposed  that  the  sum  be  ^30,000,  and  he 
received  the  support  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  other  eminent 
members  of  the  Opposition ;  and  the  amendment  was  car- 
ried. 


The  Queen  s  Marriage.  117 

These  were  not  auspicious  incidents  to  prelude  the 
Royal  marriage.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  for  a  time 
the  Queen,  still  more  than  the  Prince,  felt  their  influence 
keenly.  The  Prince  showed  remarkable  good  sense  and 
appreciation  of  the  condition  of  political  arrangements  in 
England,  and  readily  comprehended  that  there  was  nothing 
personal  to  himself  in  any  objections  which  the  House  of 
Commons  might  have  made  to  the  proposals  of  the  minis- 
try. The  question  of  precedence  was  very  easily  settled 
when  it  came  to  be  discussed  in  reasonable  fashion ;  al- 
though it  was  not  until  many  years  after  (1857)  that  the 
title  of  Prince  Consort  was  given  to  the  husband  of  the 
Queen. 

A  few  months  after  the  marriage,   a  bill  was  passed 
providing    for    a    regency  in  the  possible  event  of  the 
death  of  the  Queen,  leaving  issue.     With  the  entire  con- 
currence of  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition,  who  were  con- 
sulted this  time,  Prince  Albert  was  named    Regent,  fol- 
lowing  the    precedent  which    had    been  adopted    in   the 
instance  of  the  Princess  Charlotte  and    Prince  Leopold. 
The  Duke  of  Sussex,  uncle  of  the  Queen,  alone  dissented 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  recorded  his  protest  against 
the  proposal.       The   passing  of  this  bill  was  naturally 
regarded  as  of  much  importance  to  Prince  Albert.       It 
gave  him  to  some  extent  the  status  in  the  country  which 
he  had  not  had  before.     It  also  proved  that  the  Prince 
himself  had  risen  in  the  estimation  of  the  Tory  party 
during  the  few  months  that  elapsed  since  the  debates  on 
the  annuity  and  the  question  of  precedence.     No  one  could 
have  started  with  a  more  resolute  determination  to  stand 
clear  of  party  politics  than  Prince  Albert.     He  accepted 
at  once  his  position  as  the  husband  of  the  Queen  of  a  con- 
stitutional country.      His  own  idea  of  his  duty  was  that 
he  should  be  the  private  secretary  and  unofficial  counsel- 
lor of  the  Queen.      To  this  purpose  he  devoted  himself 
imswervingly.     Outside  that  part  of  his  duties,  he  consti- 
tuted himself  a  sort  of  minister  without  portfolio  of  art  and 


ii8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

education.  He  took  an  interest,  and  often  a  leading  part, 
in  all  projects  and  movements  relating  to  the  spread  of 
education,  the  culture  of  art,  and  the  promotion  of  indus- 
trial science.  Yet  it  was  long  before  he  was  thoroughly 
understood  by  the  country.  It  was  long  before  he  became 
in  any  degree  popular;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  he 
ever  was  thoroughly  and  generally  popular.  Not,  per- 
haps, until  his  untimely  death  did  the  country  find  out 
how  entirely  disinterested  and  faithful  his  life  had  been, 
and  how  he  had  made  the  discharge  of  duty  his  business 
and  his  task.  His  character  was  one  which  is  liable  to  be 
regarded  by  ordinary  observers  as  possessing  none  but 
negative  virtues.  He  was  thought  to  be  cold,  formal,  and 
apathetic.  His  manners  were  somewhat  shy  and  con- 
strained, except  when  he  was  in  the  company  of  those  he 
loved,  and  then  he  commonly  relaxed  into  a  kind  of  boyish 
freedom  and  joyousness.  But  to  the  public  in  general  he 
seemed  formal  and  chilling.  It  is  not  only  Mr.  Pendennis 
who  conceals  his  gentleness  under  a  shy  and  pompous 
demeanor.  With  all  his  ability,  his  anxiety  to  learn,  his 
capacity  for  patient  study,  and  his  willingness  to  welcome 
new  ideas,  he  never,  perhaps,  quite  understood  the  genius 
of  the  English  political  system.  His  faithful  friend  and 
counsellor,  Baron  Stockmar,  was  not  the  man  best  calcu- 
lated to  set  him  right  on  this  subject.  Both  were  far  too 
eager  to  find  in  the  English  Constitution  a  piece  of 
symmetrical  mechanism,  or  to  treat  it  as. a  written  code 
from  which  one  might  take  extracts  or  construct  summa- 
ries for  constant  reference  and  guidance.  But  this  was  not, 
in  the  beginning,  the  cause  of  any  coldness  toward  the 
Prince  on  the  part  of  the  English  public.  Prince  Albert 
had  not  the  ways  of  an  Englishman;  and  the  tendency  of 
Englishmen,  then  as  now,  was  to  assume  that  to  have 
manners  other  than  those  of  an  Englishman  was  to  be  so 
far  unworthy  of  confidence.  He  was  not  made  to  shine 
in  commonplace  society.  He  could  talk  admirably  about 
something,  but  he  had  not  the  gift  of  talking  about  nothing, 


The  Queen's  Marriage.  119 

and  probably  would  not  have  cared  much  to  cultivate  such 
a  faculty.  He  was  fond  of  suggesting  small  innovations 
and  improvements  in  established  systems,  to  the  annoyance 
of  men  with  set  ideas,  who  liked  their  own  ways  best. 
Thus  it  happened  that  he  remained  for  many  years,  if  not 
exactly  unappreciated,  yet  not  thoroughly  appreciated,  and 
that  a  considerable  and  very  influential  section  of  society 
was  always  ready  to  cavil  at  what  he  said,  and  find  motive 
for  suspicion  in  most  things  that  he  did.  Perhaps  he  was 
best  understood  and  most  cordially  appreciated  among  the 
poorer  classes  of  his  wife's  subjects.  He  found  also  more 
cordial  approval  generally  among  the  Radicals  than  among 
the  Tories,  or  even  the  Whigs. 

One  reform  which  Prince  Albert  worked  earnestly  to 
bring  about  was  the  abolition  of  duelling  in  the  army,  and 
the  substitution  of  some  system  of  courts  of  honorable  arbi- 
tration to  supersede  the  barbaric  recourse  to  the  decision  of 
weapons.  He  did  not  succeed  in  having  his  courts  of 
honor  established.  There  was  something  too  fanciful  in 
the  scheme  to  attract  the  authorities  of  our  two  services ; 
and  there  were  undoubtedly  many  practical  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  making  such  a  system  effective.  But  he  suc- 
ceeded so  far  that  he  induced  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and 
the  heads  of  the  services  to  turn  their  attention  very 
seriously  to  the  subject,  and  to  use  all  the  influence  in 
their  power  for  the  purpose  of  discouraging  and  discredit- 
ing the  odious  practice  of  the  duel.  It  is  carrying  courtly 
politeness  too  far  to  attribute  the  total  disappearance  of 
the  duelling  system,  as  one  biographer  seems  inclined  to 
do,  to  the  personal  efforts  of  Prince  Albert.  It  is  enough 
to  his  honor  that  he  did  his  best,  anS  that  the  best  was  a 
substantial  contribution  toward  so  great  an  object.  But 
nothing  can  testify  more  strikingly  to  the  rapid  growth  of 
a  genuine  civilization  in  Queen  Victoria's  reign  than  the 
utter  discontinuance  of  the  duelling  system.  When  the 
Queen  came  to  the  throne,  and  for  years  after,  it  was  still 
in  full  force.     The  duel  plays  a  conspicuous  part  in  the 


120  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

fiction  and  the  drama  of  the  reign's  earlier  years.  It  was 
a  common  incident  of  all  political  controversies.  It  was 
an  episode  of  most  contested  elections.  It  was  often  re- 
sorted to  for  the  purpose  of  deciding  the  right  or  wrong  of 
a  half-drunken  quarrel  over  a  card-table.  It  formed  as 
common  a  theme  of  gossip  as  an  elopement  or  a  bank- 
ruptcy. Most  of  the  eminent  statesmen  who  were  prom- 
inent in  the  earlier  part  of  the  Queen's  reign  had  fought 
duels.  Peel  and  O'Connell  had  made  arrangements  for  a 
"meeting."  Mr.  Disraeli  had  challenged  O'Connell  or 
any  of  the  sons  of  O'Connell.  The  great  agitator  himself 
had  killed  his  man  in  a  duel.  Mr.  Roebuck  had  gone  out; 
Mr.  Cobden,  at  a  much  later  period,  had  been  visited  with  a 
challenge,  and  had  had  the  good  sense  and  the  moral  cour- 
age to  laugh  at  it.  At  the  present  hour  a  duel  in  England 
would  seem  as  absurd  and  barbarous  an  anachronism  as 
an  ordeal  by  touch  or  a  witch-burning.  Many  years  have 
passed  since  a  duel  was  last  talked  of  in  Parliament;  and 
then  it  was  only  the  subject  of  a  reprobation  that  had 
some  work  to  do  to  keep  its  countenance  while  adminis- 
tering the  proper  rebuke.  But  it  was  not  the  influence  of 
any  one  man,  or  even  any  class  of  men,  that  brought 
about  in  so  short  a  time  this  striking  change  in  the  tone  of 
public  feeling  and  morality.  The  change  was  part  of  the 
growth  of  education  and  of  civilization;  of  the  strengthen- 
ing and  broadening  influence  of  the  press,  the  platform, 
the  cheap  book,  the  pulpit,  and  the  less  restricted  inter- 
•course  of  classes. 

This  is,  perhaps,  as  suitable  a  place  as  any  other  to 
introduce  some  notice  of  the  attempts  that  were  made  from 
time  to  time  upon  the  life  of  the  Queen.  It  is  proper  to 
say  something  of  them,  although  not  one  possessed  the 
slightest  political  importance,  or  could  be  said  to  illustrate 
anything  more  than  sheer  lunacy,  or  that  morbid  vanity 
and  thirst  for  notoriety  that  is  nearly  akin  to  genuine 
madness.  The  first  attempt  was  made  on  June  loth,  1840, 
by  Edward  Oxford,  a  pot-boy  of  seventeen,  who  fired  two 


The  Queen's  Marriage.  121 

shots  at  the  Queen  as  she  was  driving  up  Constitution  Hill 
with  Prince  Albert.  Oxford  fired  both  shots  deliberately- 
enough,  but  happily  missed  in  each  case.  He  proved  to 
have  been  an  absurd  creature,  half  crazy  with  a  longing 
to  consider  himself  a  political  prisoner  and  to  be  talked  of. 
When  he  was  tried,  the  jury  pronounced  him  insane,  and 
he  was  ordered  to  be  kept  in  a  lunatic  asylum  during  her 
Majesty's  pleasure.  The  trial  completely  dissipated  some 
wild  alarms  that  were  felt,  founded  chiefly  on  absurd 
papers  in  Oxford's  possession,  about  a  tremendous  secret 
society  called  "Young  England,"  having  among  its  other 
objects  the  assassination  of  royal  personages.  It  is  not  an 
uninteresting  illustration  of  the  condition  of  public  feeling 
that  some  of  the  Irish  Catholic  papers  in  seeming  good 
faith  denounced  Oxford  as  an  agent  of  the  Duke  of  Cum- 
berland and  the  Orangemen,  and  declared  that  the  object 
was  to  assassinate  the  Queen  and  put  the  Duke  on  the 
throne.  The  trial  showed  that  Oxford  was  the  agent  of 
nobody,  and  was  impelled  by  nothing  but  his  own  crack- 
brained  love  of  notoriety.  The  finding  of  the  jury  was 
evidently  something  of  a  compromise,  for  it  is  very  doubt- 
ful whether  the  boy  was  insane  in  the  medical  sense,  and 
whether  he  was  fairly  to  be  held  irresponsible  for  his 
actions.  But  it  was  felt,  perhaps,  that  the  wisest  course 
was  to  treat  him  as  a  madman;  and  the  result  did  not 
prove  unsatisfactory.  Mr.  Theodore  Martin,  in  his  "  Life 
of  the  Prince  Consort,"  expresses  a  different  opinion.  He 
thinks  it  would  have  been  well  if  Oxford  had  been  dealt 
with  as  guilty  in  the  ordinary  way.  "  The  best  commen- 
tary," he  says,  "on  the  lenity  thus  shown  was  pronounced 
by  Oxford  himself,  on  being  told  of  the  similar  attempts 
of  Francis  and  Bean  in  1842,  when  he  declared  that  if  he 
had  been  hanged  there  would  have  been  no  more  shooting 
at  the  Queen."  It  may  be  reasonably  doubted  whether 
the  authority  of  Oxford,  as  to  the  general  influence  of  crim- 
inal legislation,  is  very  valuable.  Against  the  philosophic 
opinion  of  the  half-crazy  young  pot-boy,  on  which  Mr. 


122  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Martin  places  so  much  reliance,  may  be  set  the  fact  that 
in  other  countries  where  attempts  on  the  life  of  the  sover- 
eign have  been  punished  by  the  stern  award  of  death,  it 
has  not  been  found  that  the  execution  of  one  fanatic  was 
a  safe  protection  against  the  murderous  fanaticism  of  an- 
other. 

On  May  30th,  1842,  a  man  named  John  Francis,  son  of 
a  machinist  in  Drury  Lane,  fired  a  pistol  at  the  Queen  as 
she  was  driving  down  Constitution  Hill,  on  the  very  spot 
where  Oxford's  attempt  was  made.  This  was  a  somewhat 
serious  attempt,  for  Francis  was  not  more  than  a  few  feet 
from  the  carriage,  which  fortunately  was  driving  at  a  very 
rapid  rate.  The  Queen  showed  great  composure.  She 
was  in  some  measure  prepared  for  the  attempt,  for  it 
seems  certain  that  the  same  man  had  on  the  previous  even- 
ing presented  a  pistol  at  the  royal  carriage,  although  he 
did  not  then  fire  it.  Francis  was  arrested  and  put  on  trial. 
He  was  only  twenty-two  years  of  age,  and  although  at  first 
he  endeavored  to  brazen  it  out  and  put  on  a  sort  of  melo- 
dramatic regicide  aspect,  yet  when  the  sentence  of  death 
for  high-treason  was  passed  on  him  he  fell  into  a  swoon 
and  was  carried  insensible  from  the  court.  The  sentence 
was  not  carried  into  effect.  It  was  not  certain  whether  the 
pistol  was  loaded  at  all,  and  whether  the  whole  perform- 
ance was  not  a  mere  piece  of  brutal  play-acting  done  out 
of  a  longing  to  be  notorious.  Her  Majesty  herself  was 
anxious  that  the  death-sentence  should  not  be  carried  into 
effect,  and  it  was  finally  commuted  to  one  of  transporta- 
tion for  life.  The  very  day  after  this  mitigation  of  pun- 
ishment became  publicly  known,  another  attempt  was 
made  by  a  hunchbacked  lad  named  Bean.  As  the  Queen 
was  passing  from  Buckingham  Palace  to  the  Chapel  Royal, 
Bean  presented  a  pistol  at  her  carriage,  but  did  not  succeed 
in  firing  it  before  his  hand  was  seized  by  a  prompt  and 
courageous  boy  who  was  standing  near.  The  pistol  was 
found  to  be  loaded  with  powder,  paper  closely  rammed 
down,  and  some  scraps  of  a  clay  pipe.     It  may  be  asked 


The  Queen's  Marriage.  I2y 

whether  the  argument  of  Mr.  Martin  is  not  fully  borne  out 
by  this  occurrence,  and  whether  the  fact  of  Bean's  attempt 
having  been  made  on  the  day  after  the  commutation  of 
the  capital  sentence  in  the  case  of  Francis  is  not  evidence 
that  the  leniency  in  the  former  instance  was  the  cause  of 
the  attempt  made  in  the  latter.      But  it  was  made  clear, 
and  the  fact  is  recorded  on  the  authority  of  Prince  Albert 
himself,  that  Bean  had  announced  his  determination  to 
make  the  attempt  several  days   before  the  sentence   of 
Francis  was  commuted,  and  while  Francis  was  actually 
lying  under  sentence  of  death.     With  regard  to  Francis 
himself,  the  Prince  was  clearly  of  opinion  that  to  carry 
out  the  capital  sentence  would  have  been  nothing  less  than 
a  judicial  murder,  as  it  is  essential  that  the  act  should  be 
committed  with  intent  to  kill  or  wound,  and  in  Francis's 
case,  to  all  appearance,  this  was  not  the  fact,  or  at  least  it 
was  open  to  grave  doubt.     In  this  calm  and  wise  way  did 
the  husband  of  the  Queen,  who  had  always  shared  with 
her  whatever  of  danger  there  might  be  in  the  attempts, 
argue  as  to  the  manner  in  which  they  ought  to  be  dealt 
with.     The   ambition   of   most  or  all   of   the  miscreants 
who  thus  disturbed  the  Queen  and  the  country  was  that 
of   the  mountebank   rather   than   of   the   assassin.      The 
Queen  herself  showed  how  thoroughly  she  understood  the 
significance  of  all  that  had  happened  when  she  declared, 
according  to  Mr.  Martin,  that  she  expected  a  repetition 
of  the  attempts  on  her  life  so  long  as  the  law  remained 
unaltered  by  which  they  could  be  dealt  with  only  as  acts 
of  high-treason.      The  seeming  dignity  of  martyrdom  had 
something   fascinating  in  it  to   morbid  vanity   or   crazy 
fanaticism,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  almost  certain 
that  the  martyr's  penalty  would  not  in  the  end  be  inflicted. 
A  very  appropriate  change  in  the  law  was  effected  by 
which  a  punishment  at  once  sharp  and  degrading  was  pro- 
vided even  for  mere  mountebank  attempts  against  the 
Queen — a  punishment  which  was  certain  to  be  inflicted. 
A  bill  was  introduced  by  Sir  Robert  Peel  making  such 


124  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

attempts  punishable  by  transportation  for  seven  years,  or 
by  imprisonment  for  a  term  not  exceeding  three  years, 
"the  culprit  to  be  publicly  or  privately  whipped  as  often 
and  in  such  manner  as  the  court  shall  direct,  not  exceed- 
ing- thrice."  Bean  was  convicted  under  this  act,  and 
sentenced  to  eighteen  months'  imprisonment  in  Millbank 
Penitentiary.  This  did  not,  however,  conclude  the  attacks 
on  the  Queen.  An  Irish  bricklayer,  named  Hamilton, 
fired  a  pistol,  charged  only  with  powder,  at  her 
Majesty,  on  Constitution  Hill,  on  May  19th,  1849,  and 
was  sentenced  to  seven  years'  transportation.  A  man 
named  Robert  Pate,  once  a  lieutenant  of  hussars,  struck 
her  Majesty  on  the  face  with  a  stick  as  she  was  leaving 
the  Duke  of  Cambridge's  residence  in  her  carriage  on  May 
27th,  1850.  This  man  was  sentenced  to  seven  years' 
transportation,  but  the  judge  paid  so  much  attention  to 
the  plea  of  insanity  set  up  on  his  behalf,  as  to  omit  from 
his  punishment  the  whipping  which  might  have  been 
ordered.  Finally,  on  February  29th,  1872,  a  lad  of  seven- 
teen, named  Arthur  O'Connor,  presented  a  pistol  at  the 
Queen  as  she  was  entering  Buckingham  Palace  after  a 
drive.  The  pistol,  however,  proved  to  be  unloaded — an 
antique  and  useless  or  harmless  weapon,  with  a  flintlock 
which  was  broken,  and  in  the  barrel  a  piece  of  greasy  red 
rag.  The  wretched  lad  held  a  paper  in  one  hand,  which 
was  found  to  be  some  sort  of  petition  on  behalf  of  the 
Fenian  prisoners.  When  he  came  up  for  trial  a  plea  of 
insanity  was  put  in  on  his  behalf,  but  he  did  not  seem  to 
be  insane  in  the  sense  of  being  irresponsible  for  his 
actions  or  incapable  of  understanding  the  penalty  they  in- 
volved, and  he  was  sentenced  to  twelve  months'  impris- 
onment and  a  whipping.  We  have  hurried  over  many 
years  for  the  purpose  of  completing  this  painful  and 
ludicrous  catalogue  of  the  attempts  made  against  the 
Queen.  It  will  be  seen  that  in  not  a  single  instance  was 
there  the  slightest  political  significance  to  be  attached  to 
them.     Even  in  our  own  softened  and  civilized  time  it 


The  Qitcen's  Marriage.  125 

sometimes  happens  that  an  attempt  is  made  on  the  life  of 
a  sovereign  which,  however  we  may  condemn  and  repro- 
bate it  on  moral  grounds,  yet  does  seem  to  bear  a  distinct 
political  meaning,  and  to  show  that  there  are  fanatical 
minds  still  burning  under  some  sense  of  national  or  per- 
sonal wrong.  But  in  the  various  attacks  which  were  made 
on  Queen  Victoria  nothing  of  the  kind  was  even  pretended. 
There  was  no  opportunity  for  any  vaporing  about  Brutus 
and  Charlotte  Corday.  The  impulse,  where  it  was  not 
that  of  sheer  insanity,  was  of  kin  to  the  vulgar  love  of 
notoriety  in  certain  minds  which  sets  on  those  whom  it 
pervades  to  mutilate  noble  works  of  art  and  scrawl  their 
autographs  on  the  marble  of  immortal  monuments.  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  wisdom  shown  in  not  dealing  too 
severely  with  most  of  these  offences,  and  in  not  treating 
them  too  much  au  serieux.  Prince  Albert  himself  said 
that  "the  vindictive  feeling  of  the  common  people  would 
be  a  thousand  times  more  dangerous  than  the  madness  of 
individuals."  There  was  not,  indeed,  the  slightest  danger 
at  any  time  that  the  "  common  people"  of  England  covild 
be  wrought  up  to  any  sympathy  with  assassination ;  nor 
was  this  what  Prince  Albert  meant.  But  the  Queen  and 
her  husband  were  yet  new  to  power,  and  the  people  had 
not  quite  lost  all  memory  of  sovereigns  who,  well-meaning 
enough,  had  yet  scarcely  understood  constitutional  govern- 
ment, and  there  were  wild  rumors  of  reaction  this  way 
and  revolution  that  way.  It  might  have  fomented  a  feel- 
ing of  distrust  and  dissatisfaction  if  the  people  had  seen 
any  disposition  on  the  part  of  those  in  authority  to  strain 
the  criminal  law  for  the  sake  of  enforcing  a  death  penalty 
against  creatures  like  Oxford  and  Bean.  The  most  alarm- 
ing and  unnerving  of  all  dangers  to  a  ruler  is  that  of 
assassination.  Even  the  best  and  most  blameless  sovereign 
is  not  wholly  secure  against  it.  The  hand  of  Oxford 
might  have  killed  the  Queen.  Perhaps,  however,  the  best 
protection  a  sovereign  can  have  is  not  to  exaggerate  the 
danger.     There  is  no  safety  in  mere  severity  of  punish- 


126  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

ment.  Where  the  attempt  is  serious  and  desperate,  it  is 
that  of  a  fanaticism  which  holds  its  life  in  its  hand,  and 
is  not  to  be  deterred  by  fear  of  death.  The  tortures  of 
Ravaillac  did  not  deter  Damiens.  The  birch  in  the  case 
of  Bean  and  O'Connor  may  effectively  discountenance  en- 
terprises which  are  born  of  the  mountebank's  and  not  the 
fanatic's  spirit. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  OPIUM  WAR. 

The  Opium  dispute  with  China  was  going  on  when  the 
Queen  came  to  the  throne.  The  Opium  "War  broke  out 
soon  after.  On  March  3d,  1843,  five  huge  wagons,  each 
of  them  drawn  by  four  horses,  and  the  whole  under  escort 
of  a  detachment  of  the  60th  Regiment,  arrived  in  front  of 
the  Mint.  An  immense  crowd  followed  the  wagons.  It 
was  seen  that  they  were  filled  with  boxes ;  and  one  of  the 
boxes  having  been  somewhat  broken  in  its  journey,  the 
crowd  were  able  to  see  that  it  was  crammed  full  of  odd- 
looking  silver  coins.  The  lookers-on  were  delighted,  as 
well  as  amused,  by  the  sight  of  this  huge  consignment  of 
treasure ;  and  when  it  became  known  that  the  silver  money 
was  the  first  instalment  of  the  China  ransom,  there  were 
lusty  cheers  given  as  the  wagons  passed  through  the  gates 
of  the  Mint.  This  was  a  payment  on  account  of  the  war 
indemnity  imposed  on  China.  Nearly  four  millions  and  a 
half  sterling  was  the  sum  of  the  indemnity,  in  addition  to 
one  million  and  a  quarter  which  had  already  been  paid  by 
the  Chinese  authorities.  Many  readers  may  remember 
that  for  some  time  "  China  money"  was  regularly  set  down 
as  an  item  in  the  revenues  of  each  year  with  which  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  had  to  deal.  The  China 
"War,  of  which  this  money  was  the  spoil,  was  not,  perhaps, 
an  event  of  which  the  nation  was  entitled  to  be  very 
proud.  It  was  the  precursor  of  other  wars ;  the  policy  on 
which  it  was  conducted  has  never  since  ceased  altogether 
to  be  a  question  of  more  or  less  excited  controversy ;  but 
it  may  safely  be  asserted  that  if  the  same  events  were  to 
occur  in  our  day  it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  find  a  min- 


128  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

istry  to  originate  a  war,  for  which  at  the  same  time  it 
must  be  owned  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  people,  of  all 
politics  and  classes,  were  only  too  ready  then  to  find  excuse 
and  even  justification.  The  wagon-loads  of  silver  con- 
veyed into  the  Mint  amid  the  cheers  of  the  crowd  were 
the  spoils  of  the  famous  Opium  War. 

Reduced  to  plain  words,  the  principle  for  which  we 
fought  in  the  China  War  was  the  right  of  Great  Britain  to 
force  a  peculiar  trade  upon  a  foreign  people  in  spite  of  the 
protestations  of  the  Government  and  all  such  public  opin- 
ion as  there  was  of  the  nation.  Of  course  this  was  not  the 
avowed  motive  of  the  war.  Not  often  in  history  is  the 
real  and  inspiring  motive  of  a  war  proclaimed  in  so  many 
words  by  those  who  carry  it  on.  Not  often,  indeed,  is  it 
seen,  naked  and  avowed,  even  in  the  minds  of  its  pro- 
moters themselves.  As  the  quarrel  between  this  country 
and  China  went  on,  a  great  many  minor  and  incidental 
subjects  of  dispute  arose,  which  for  the  moment  put  the 
one  main  and  original  question  out  of  people's  minds;  and 
in  the  course  of  these  discussions  it  happened  more  than 
once  that  the  Chinese  authorities  took  some  steps  which 
put  them  decidedly  in  the  wrong.  Thus  it  is  true  enough 
that  there  were  particular  passages  of  the  controversy  when 
the  English  Government  had  all  or  nearly  all  of  the  right 
on  their  side,  so  far  as  the  immediate  incident  of  the  dis- 
pute was  concerned ;  and  when,  if  that  had  been  the  whole 
matter  of  quarrel,  or  if  the  quarrel  had  begun  there,  a 
patriotic  minister  might  have  been  justified  in  thinking 
that  the  Chinese  were  determined  to  offend  England  and 
deserved  humiliation.  But  no  consideration  of  this  kind 
can  now  hide  from  our  eyes  the  fact  that  in  the  beginning 
and  the  very  origin  of  the  quarrel  we  were  distinctly  in 
the  wrong.  We  asserted  or  at  least  acted  on  the  assertion 
of  a  claim  so  unreasonable  and  even  monstrous  that  it 
never  could  have  been  made  upon  any  nation  strong  enough 
to  render  its  assertion  a  matter  of  serious  responsibility. 
The  most  important  lessons  a  nation  can  learn  from  its 


The  Opium  War.  129 

own  history  are  found  in  the  exposure  of  its  own  errors. 
Historians  have  sometimes  done  more  evil  than  court  flat- 
terers when  they  have  gone  about  to  glorify  the  errors  of 
their  own  people,  and  to  make  wrong  appear  right,  because 
an  English  Government  talked  the  public  opinion  of  the 
time  into  a  confusion  of  principles. 

The  whole  principle  of  Chinese  civilization,  at  the 
time  when  the  Opium  War  broke  out,  was  based  on  con- 
ditions which  to  any  modern  nation  must  seem  erroneous 
and  unreasonable.  The  Chinese  governments  and  people 
desired  to  have  no  political  relations  or  dealings  whatever 
with  any  other  State.  They  were  not  so  obstinately  set 
against  private  and  commercial  dealings ;  but  they  would 
have  no  political  intercourse  with  foreigners,  and  they 
would  not  even  recognize  the  existence  of  foreign  peoples 
as  States.  They  were  perfectly  satisfied  with  themselves 
and  their  own  systems.  They  were  convinced  that  their 
own  systems  were  not  only  wise  but  absolutely  perfect.  It 
is  superfluous  to  say  that  this  was  in  itself  evidence  of 
ignorance  and  self-conceit.  A  belief  in  the  perfection  of 
their  own  systems  could  only  exist  among  a  people  who 
knew  nothing  of  any  other  systems.  But  absurd  as  the 
idea  must  appear  to  us,  yet  the  Chinese  might  have  found 
a  good  deal  to  say  for  it.  It  was  the  result  of  a  civiliza- 
tion so  ancient  that  the  oldest  events  preserved  in  European 
history  were  but  as  yesterday  in  the  comparison.  What- 
ever its  errors  and  defects,  it  was  distinctly  a  civilization. 
It  was  a  system  with  a  literature  and  laws  and  institutions 
of  its  own;  it  was  a  coherent  and  harmonious  social  and 
political  system  which  had,  on  the  whole,  worked  toler- 
ably well.  It  was  not  very  unlike,  in  its  principles,  the 
kind  of  civilization  which  at  one  time  it  was  the  whim  of 
men  of  genius,  like  Rousseau  and  Diderot,  to  idealize  and 
admire.  The  European,  of  whatever  nation,  may  be  said 
to  like  change,  and  to  believe  in  its  necessity.  His  in- 
stincts and  his  convictions  alike  tend  this  way.  The  sleepi- 
est of  Europeans — the  Neapolitan,  who  lies  with  his  feet 
Vol.  I.— 9 


i^o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

in  the  water  on  the  Chiaja;   the  Spaniard,    who  smokes 
his  cigar  and  sips  his  coffee  as  if  life  had  no  active  busi- 
ness whatever;  the  flaneur  of  the  Paris  boulevards;  the 
beggar  who  lounged  from  cabin  to  cabin  in  Ireland  a  gen- 
eration ago — all  these,  no  matter  how  little  inclined  for 
change  themselves,  would  be  delighted  to  hear  of  travel 
and  enterprise,  and  of  new  things  and  new  discoveries. 
But  to  the  Chinese,  of  all  Eastern  races,  the  very  idea  of 
travel  and  change  was  something  repulsive  and  odious. 
As  the  thought  of  having  to  go  a  day  unwashed  would  be 
to  the  educated  Englishman  of  our  age,  or  as  the  edge  of  a 
precipice  is  to  a  nervous  man,  so  was  the  idea  of  innovation 
to  the  Chinese  of  that  time.     The  ordinary  Oriental  dreads 
and  detests  change;  but  the  Chinese  at  that  time  went  as 
far  beyond  the  ordinary  Oriental  as  the  latter  goes  be- 
yond an  average  Englishman.     In  the  present  day  a  con- 
siderable alteration  has  taken  place  in  this  respect.     The 
Chinese  have  had  innovation  after  innovation  forced  on 
them,  until  at  last  they  have  taken  up  with  the  new  order 
of  things,  like  people  who  feel  that  it  is  idle  to  resist  their 
fate  any  longer.       The  emigration  from  China  has  been 
as  remarkable  as  that  from  Ireland  or  Germany ;  and  the 
United  States  finds  itself  confronted  with  a  question  of 
the  first  magnitude  when  it  asks  itself  what  is  to  be  the 
influence   and   operation   of  the  descent  of  the  Chinese 
populations  along  the  Pacific  slope.     Japan  has  put  on 
modern  and  European  civilization  like  a  garment.     Japan 
effected  in  a  few  years  a  revolution  in  the  political  consti- 
tution and  the  social  habits  of  her  people,  and  in  their  very 
way  of  looking  at  things,  the  like  of  which  no  other  State 
ever  accomplished  in  a  century.     But  nothing  of  all  this 
was  thought  of  at  the  time  of  the  China  War,     The  one 
thing  which  China  asked  of  European  civilization  and  the 
thing  called  Modern  Progress  was  to  be  let  alone.     China's 
prayer  to  Europe  was  that  of  Diogenes  to  Alexander — 
"  Stand  out  of  my  sunshine." 

It  was,  as  we  have  said,  to  political  relationships  rather 


The  Opium  IVar.  131 

than  to  private  and  commercial  dealings  with  foreign  peo- 
ples that  the  Chinese  felt  an  unconquerable  objection. 
They  did  not,  indeed,  like  even  private  and  commercial 
dealings  with  foreigners.  They  would  much  rather  have 
lived  without  ever  seeing  the  face  of  a  foreigner.  But 
they  had  put  up  with  the  private  intrusion  of  foreigners 
and  trade,  and  had  had  dealings  with  American  traders, 
and  with  the  East  India  Company.  The  charter  and  the 
exclusive  rights  of  the  East  India  Company  expired  in 
April,  1834;  the  charter  was  renewed  under  different  con- 
ditions, and  the  trade  with  China  was  thrown  open.  One 
of  the  great  branches  of  the  East  India  Company's  busi- 
ness with  China  was  the  opium  trade.  When  the  trading 
privileges  ceased  this  traffic  was  taken  up  briskly  by 
private  merchants,  who  bought  of  the  Company  the  opium 
which  they  grew  in  India  and  sold  it  to  the  Chinese.  The 
Chinese  governments,  and  all  teachers,  moralists,  and 
persons  of  education  in  China,  had  long  desired  to  get  rid 
of  or  put  down  this  trade  in  opium.  They  considered  it 
highly  detrimental  to  the  morals,  the  health,  and  the 
prosperit)''  of  the  people.  Of  late  the  destructive  effects 
of  opium  have  often  been  disputed,  particularly  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  It  has  been  said  that  it  is  not,  on 
the  average,  nearly  so  unwholesome  as  the  Chinese  gov- 
ernments always  thought,  and  that  it  does  not  do  as  much 
proportionate  harm  to  China  as  the  use  of  brandy,  whiskey, 
and  gin  does  to  England.  It  seems  to  this  writer  hardly 
possible  to  doubt  that  the  use  of  opium  is,  on  the  whole,  a 
curse  to  any  nation ;  but  even  if  this  were  not  so,  the 
question  between  England  and  the  Chinese  governments 
would  remain  just  the  same.  The  Chinese  governments 
may  have  taken  exaggerated  views  of  the  evils  of  the 
opium  trade ;  their  motives  in  wishing  to  put  it  down  may 
have  been  mixed  with  considerations  of  interest  as  much 
political  as  philanthropic.  Lord  Palmerston  insisted  that 
the  Chinese  Government  were  not  sincere  in  their  pro- 
fessed objection  on  moral  grounds  to  the  traffic.     If  they 


1^2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

were  sincere,   he  asked,   why  did  they  not  prevent  the 
growth  of  the  poppy  in  China?     It  was,  he  tersely  put  it, 
an  "  exportation  of  bullion  question,  an  agricultural  pro- 
tection question;"  it  was  a  question  of  the  poppy  interest 
in  China,  and  of  the  economists  who  wished  to  prevent 
the  exportation  of  the  precious  metals.     It  is  curious  that 
such  arguments  as  this  could  have  weighed  with  any  one 
for  a  moment.     It  was  no  business  of  ours  to  ask  ourselves 
whether  the  Chinese  Government  were  perfectly  sincere 
in  their  professions  of  a  lofty  morality,  or  whether  they, 
unlike  all  other  governments  that  have  ever  been  known, 
were  influenced  by  one  sole  motive  in  the  making  of  their 
regulations.     All  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  question. 
States  are  not  at  liberty  to  help  the  subjects  of  other  States 
to  break  the  laws  of  their  own  governments.     Especially 
when   these   laws  even  profess   to  concern  questions  of 
morals,  is  it  the  duty  of  foreign  States  not  to  interfere 
with  the   regulations  which  a  government  considers    it 
necessary  to  impose  for  the  protection  of  its  people.     All 
traffic  in  opium  was  strictly  forbidden  by  the  governments 
and  laws  of  China;  yet  our  English  traders  carried  on  a 
brisk  and  profitable  trade  in  the  forbidden  article.     Nor 
was  this  merely  an  ordinary  smuggling,  or  a  business  akin 
to  that  of  the  blockade-running  during  the  American  civil 
war.     The  arrangements  with   the  Chinese  Government 
allowed  the  existence  of  all  establishments  and  machinery 
for  carrying  on  a  general  trade  at  Canton  and  Macao ;  and 
under  cover  of  these  arrangements  the  opium  traders  set 
up  their  regular  headquarters  in  these  towns. 

Let  us  find  an  illustration  intelligible  to  readers  of  the 
present  day  to  show  how  unjustifiable  was  this  practice. 
The  State  of  Maine,  as  every  one  knows,  prohibits  the 
common  sale  of  spirituous  liquors.  Let  us  suppose  that 
several  companies  of  English  merchants  were  formed  in 
Portland  and  Augusta,  and  the  other  towns  of  Maine,  for 
the  purpose  of  brewing  beer  and  distilling  whiskey,  and 
selling  both  to  the  public  of  Maine  in  defiance  of  the  Stat© 


The  Opium  War.  133 

laws.  Let  us  further  suppose  that  when  the  authorities 
of  Maine  proceeded  to  put  the  State  laws  in  force  against 
these  intruders,  our  Government  here  took  up  the  cause 
of  the  whiskey-sellers,  and  sent  an  iron-clad  fleet  to  Port- 
land to  compel  the  people  of  Maine  to  put  up  with  them. 
It  seems  impossible  to  think  of  any  English  Government 
taking  such  a  course  as  this;  or  of  the  English  public 
enduring  it  for  one  moment.  In  the  case  of  such  a  nation 
as  the  United  States,  nothing  of  the  kind  would  be  possible. 
The  serious  responsibilities  of  any  such  undertaking  would 
make  even  the  most  thoughtless  minister  pause,  and  would 
give  the  public  in  general  some  time  to  think  the  matter 
over;  and  before  any  freak  of  the  kind  could  be  attempted 
the  conscience  of  the  nation  would  be  aroused,  and  the 
unjust  policy  would  have  to  be  abandoned.  But  in  dealing 
with  China  the  ministry  never  seems  to  have  thought  the 
right  or  wrong  of  the  question  a  matter  worthy  of  any 
consideration.  The  controversy  was  entered  upon  with  as 
light  a  heart  as  a  modern  war  of  still  graver  moment. 
The  people  in  general  knew  nothing  about  the  matter 
until  it  had  gone  so  far  that  the  original  point  of  dispute 
was  almost  out  of  sight,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  safety  of 
English  subjects  and  the  honor  of  England  were  com- 
promised in  some  way  by  the  high-handed  proceedings  of 
the  Chinese  Government. 

The  English  Government  appointed  superintendents  to 
manage  our  commercial  dealings  with  China.  Unluckily 
these  superintendents  were  invested  with  a  sort  of  political 
or  diplomatic  character,  and  thus  from  the  first  became 
objectionable  to  the  Chinese  authorities.  One  of  the  first 
of  these  superintendents  acted  in  disregard  of  the  express 
instructions  of  his  own  Government.  He  was  told  that 
he  must  not  pass  the  entrance  of  the  Canton  River  in  a 
vessel  of  war,  as  the  Chinese  authorities  always  made  a 
marked  distinction  between  ships  of  war  and  merchant 
vessels  in  regard  to  the  freedom  of  intercourse.  Mis- 
understandings occurred  at  every  new  step  of  negotiation. 


134  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

These  misunderstandings  were  natural.  Our  people  knew 
hardly  anything  about  the  Chinese.  The  limitation  of 
our  means  of  communication  with  them  made  this  igno- 
rance inevitable,  but  certainly  did  not  excuse  our  acting  as 
if  we  were  in  possession  of  the  fullest  and  most  accurate 
information.  The  manner  in  which  some  of  our  official 
instructors  went  on  was  well  illustrated  by  a  sentence  in 
the  speech  of  Sir  James  Graham,  during  the  debate  on  the 
whole  subject  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  April,  1840. 
It  was.  Sir  James  Graham  said,  as  if  a  foreigner  who  was 
occasionally  permitted  to  anchor  at  the  Nore,  and  at  times 
to  land  at  Wapping,  being  placed  in  close  confinement 
during  his  continuance  there,  were  to  pronounce  a  deliber- 
ate opinion  upon  the  resources,  the  genius,  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  British  Empire. 

Our  representatives  were  generally  disposed  to  be  un- 
yielding; and  not  only  that,  but  to  see  deliberate  offence 
in  every  Chinese  usage  or  ceremony  which  the  authorities 
endeavored  to  impose  on  them.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
clear  that  the  Chinese  authorities  thoroughly  detested 
them  and  their  mission,  and  all  about  them,  and  often 
made  or  countenanced  delays  that  were  unnecessary,  and 
interferences  which  were  disagreeable  and  offensive.  The 
Chinese  believed  from  the  first  that  the  superintendents 
were  there  merely  to  protect  the  opium  trade,  and  to  force 
on  China  political  relations  with  the  West.  Practically  this 
was  the  effect  of  their  presence.  The  superintendents 
took  no  steps  to  aid  the  Chinese  authorities  in  stopping 
the  hated  trade.  The  British  traders  naturally  enough 
thought  that  the  British  Government  were  determined  to 
protect  them  in  carrying  it  on.  Indeed,  the  superintend- 
ents themselves  might  well  have  had  the  same  conviction. 
The  Government  at-home  allowed  Captain  Elliott,  the 
chief  superintendent,  to  make  appeal  after  appeal  for 
instructions  without  paying  the  slightest  attention  to  him. 
Captain  Elliott  saw  that  the  opium  traders  were  growing 
more  and  more  reckless  and  audacious;  that  they  were 


The  Opium  War.  135 

thrusting  their  trade  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  Chinese 
authorities.  He  also  saw,  as  every  one  on  the  spot  must 
have  seen,  that  the  authorities,  who  had  been  somewhat 
apathetic  for  a  long  time,  were  now  at  last  determined  to 
go  any  lengths  to  put  down  the  traffic.  At  length  the 
English  Government  announced  to  Captain  Elliott  the 
decision  which  they  ought  to  have  made  known  months, 
not  to  say  5'^ears,  before,  that  "her  Majesty's  Government 
could  not  interfere  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  British 
subjects  to  violate  the  laws  of  the  country  with  which  they 
trade;"  and  that  "any  loss,  therefore,  which  such  persons 
may  suffer  in  consequence  of  the  more  effectual  execution 
of  the  Chinese  laws  on  this  subject  must  be  borne  by  the 
parties  who  have  brought  that  loss  on  themselves  by  their 
own  acts."  This  very  wise  and  proper  resolve  came,  how- 
ever, too  late.  The  British  traders  had  been  allowed  to  go 
on  for  a  long  time  under  the  full  conviction  that  the  protec- 
tion of  the  English  Government  was  behind  them,  and 
wholly  at  their  service.  Captain  Elliott  himself  seems  to 
have  now  believed  that  the  announcement  of  his  superiors 
was  but  a  graceful  diplomatic  figure  of  speech.  When  the 
Chinese  authorities  actually  proceeded  to  insist  on  the  for- 
feiture of  an  immense  quantity  of  the  opium  in  the  hands 
of  British  traders,  and  took  other  harsh  but  certainly  not 
unnatural  measures  to  extinguish  the  traffic,  Captain 
Elliott  sent  to  the  Governor  of  India  a  request  for  as  many 
ships  of  war  as  could  be  spared  for  the  protection  of  the 
life  and  property  of  Englishmen  in  China.  Before  long- 
British  ships  arrived,  and  the  two  countries  were  at  war. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  describe  the  successive  steps  by 
which  the  war  came  on.  It  was  inevitable  from  the 
moment  that  the  English  superintendent  identified  him- 
self with  the  protection  of  the  opium  trade.  The  English 
believed  that  the  Chinese  authorities  were  determined  on 
war,  and  only  waiting  for  a  convenient  moment  to  make 
a  treacherous  beginning.  The  Chinese  were  convinced 
that  from  the  first  we  had  meant  nothing  but  war.     Such 


136  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

a  condition  of  feeling  on  both  sides  would  probably  have 
made  war  unavoidable,  even  in  the  case  of  two  nations  who 
had  much  better  ways  of  understanding  each  other  than 
the  English  and  Chinese.  It  is  not  surprising  if  the  Eng- 
lish people  at  home  knew  little  of  the  original  causes  of 
the  controversy.  All  that  presented  itself  to  their  mind 
was  the  fact  that  Englishmen  were  in  danger  in  a  foreign 
country;  that  they  were  harshly  treated  and  recklessly 
imprisoned;  that  their  lives  were  in  jeopardy,  and  that  the 
flag  of  England  was  insulted.  There  was  a  general  notion, 
too,  that  the  Chinese  were  a  barbarous  and  a  ridiculous 
people,  who  had  no  alphabet,  and  thought  themselves 
much  better  than  any  other  people,  even  the  English,  and 
that  on  the  whole  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  take  the 
conceit  out  of  them.  Those  who  remember  what  the 
common  feeling  of  ordinary  society  was  at  the  time,  will 
admit  that  it  did  not  reach  a  much  loftier  level  than  this. 
The  matter  was,  however,  taken  up  more  seriously  in 
Parliament. 

The  policy  of  the  Government  was  challenged  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  but  with  results  of  more  importance 
to  the  existing  composition  of  the  English  Cabinet  than  to 
the  relations  between  this  country  and  China.  Sir  James 
Graham  moved  a  resolution  condemning  the  policy  of 
ministers  for  having,  by  its  uncertainty  and  other  errors, 
brought  about  the  war,  which,  however,  he  did  not  then 
think  it  possible  to  avoid.  A  debate  which  continued  for 
three  days  took  place.  It  was  marked  by  the  same  curious 
mixture  of  parties  which  we  have  seen  in  debates  on 
China  questions  in  days  nearer  to  the  present.  The  de- 
fence of  the  Government  was  opened  by  Mr.  Macaulay, 
who  had  been  elected  for  Edinburgh  and  appointed  Secre- 
tary at  War.  The  defence  consisted  chiefly  in  the  argu- 
ment that  we  could  not  have  put  the  trade  in  opium  down, 
no  matter  how  earnest  we  had  been,  and  that  it  was  not 
necessary  or  possible  to  keep  on  issuing  frequent  instruc- 
tions to  agents  so  far  away  as  our  representatives  in  China. 


The  Opium  War.  ij7 

Mr.  Macaulay  actually  drew,  from  our  experience  in  India, 
an  argument  in  support  of  his  position.  We  cannot  gov- 
ern India  from  London,  he  insisted;  we  must,  for  the 
most  part,  govern  India  in  India.  One  can  imagine  how 
Macaulay  would,  in  one  of  his  essays,  have  torn  into  pieces 
such  an  argument  coming  from  any  advocate  of  a  policy 
opposed  to  his  own.  The  reply,  indeed,  is  almost  too 
obvious  to  need  any  exposition.  In  India  the  complete 
materials  of  administration  were  in  existence.  There  was 
a  Governor-general ;  there  were  councillors ;  there  was  an 
army.  The  men  best  qualified  to  rule  the  country  were 
there,  provided  with  all  the  appliances  and  forces  of  rule. 
In  China  we  had  an  agent  with  a  vague  and  anomalous 
office  dropped  down  in  the  middle  of  a  hostile  people, 
possessed  neither  of  recognized  authority  nor  of  power  to 
enforce  its  recognition.  It  was  probably  true  enough  that 
we  could  not  have  put  down  the  opium  trade ;  that  even 
with  all  the  assistance  of  the  Chinese  Government  we 
could  have  done  no  more  than  to  drive  it  from  one  port  in 
order  to  see  it  make  its  appearance  at  another.  But  what 
we  ought  to  have  done  is,  therefore,  only  the  more  clear. 
We  ought  to  have  announced  from  the  first,  and  in  the 
firmest  tone,  that  we  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
trade ;  that  we  would  not  protect  it ;  and  we  ought  to  have 
held  to  this  determination.  As  it  was,  we  allowed  our 
traders  to  remain  under  the  impression  that  we  were  will- 
ing to  support  them,  until  it  was  too  late  to  undeceive 
them  with  any  profit  to  their  safety  or  our  credit.  The 
Chinese  authorities  acted  after  a  while  with  a  high-handed 
disregard  of  fairness,  and  of  anything  like  what  we  should 
call  the  responsibility  of  law ;  but  it  is  evident  that  they 
believed  they  were  themselves  the  objects  of  lawless  in- 
trusion and  enterprise.  There  were  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  great  efforts  made  to  represent  the  motion 
as  an  attempt  to  prevent  the  ministry  from  exacting  satis- 
faction from  the  Chinese  Government,  and  from  protect- 
ing the  lives  and  interests  of  Englishmen  in  China.     But 


138  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times.  >, 

it  is  unfortunately  only  too  often  the  duty  of  statesmen  to 
recognize  the  necessity  of  carrying  on  a  war,  even  while 
they  are  of  opinion  that  they  whose  mismanagement 
brought  about  the  war  deserve  condemnation.  When 
Englishmen  are  being  imprisoned  and  murdered,  the  in- 
nocent just  as  well  as  the  guilty,  in  a  foreign  country — • 
when,  in  short,  war  is  actually  going  on — it  is  not  possible 
for  English  statesmen  in  opposition  to  say,  "  We  will  not 
allow  England  to  strike  a  blow  in  defence  of  our  fellow- 
coimtrymen  and  our  flag,  because  we  are  of  opinion  that 
better  judgment  on  the  part  of  our  Government  would 
have  spared  us  the  beginning  of  such  a  war."  There  was 
really  no  inconsistency  in  recognizing  the  necessity  of 
carrying  on  the  war,  and  at  the  same  time  censuring  the 
ministry  who  had  allowed  the  necessity  to  be  forced  upon 
us.  Sir  Robert  Peel  quoted  with  great  effect,  during  the 
debate,  the  example  of  Fox,  who  declared  his  readiness  to 
give  every  help  to  the  prosecution  of  a  war  which  the  very 
same  day  he  proposed  to  censure  the  ministry  for  having 
brought  upon  the  country.  With  all  their  efforts,  the 
ministers  were  only  able  to  command  a  majority  of  nine 
votes  as  the  result  of  the  three  days'  debate. 

The  war,  however,  went  on.  It  was  easy  work  enough 
so  far  as  England  was  concerned.  It  was  on  our  side 
nothing  but  a  succession  of  cheap  victories.  The  Chinese 
fought  very  bravely  in  a  great  many  instances ;  and  they 
showed  still  more  often  a  Spartan-like  resolve  not  to  sur- 
vive defeat.  When  one  of  the  Chinese  cities  was  taken 
by  Sir  Hugh  Gough,  the  Tartar  general  went  into  his 
house  as  soon  as  he  saw  that  all  was  lost,  made  his  servants 
set  fire  to  the  building,  and  calmly  sat  in  his  chair  until 
he  was  burned  to  death.  One  of  the  English  officers 
writes  of  the  same  attack  that  it  was  impossible  to  com- 
pute the  loss  of  the  Chinese,  "  for  when  they  found  they 
could  stand  no  longer  against  us,  they  cut  the  throats  of 
their  wives  and  children,  or  drove  them  into  wells  or 
ponds,  and  then  destroyed  themselves.     In  many  houses 


The  Opium  War.  1^9 

there  were  from  eight  to  twelve  dead  bodies,  and  I  myself 
saw  a  dozen  women  and  children  drowning  themselves  in 
a  small  pond  the  day  after  the  fight. "    We  quickly  captured 
the  island  of  Chusan,  on  the  east  coast  of  China ;  a  part 
of  our  squadron  went  up  the  Peiho  River  to  threaten  the 
capital;  negotiations  were  opened,  and  the  preliminaries 
of  a  treaty  were  made  out,  to  which,  however,  neither  the 
English  Government  nor  the  Chinese  would  agree,  and 
the  war  was  reopened.     Chusan  was  again  taken  by  us ; 
Ningpo,  a  large  city  a  few  miles  in  on  the  mainland,  fell 
into  our  hands ;  Amoy,  farther  south,  was  captured;  our 
troops  were  before  Nankin  when  the  Chinese  Government 
at  last  saw  how  futile  was  the  idea  of  resisting  our  arms. 
Their  women  or  their  children  might  just  as  well  have 
attempted  to  encounter  our  soldiers.     With  all  the  bravery 
which  the  Chinese  often  displayed,  there  was  something 
pitiful,  pathetic,  ludicrous,  in  the  simple  and  childlike  at- 
tempts which  they  made  to  carry  on  war  against  us.     They 
made  peace  at  last  on  any  terms  we  chose  to  ask.     We 
asked,  in  the  first  instance,  the  cession  in  perpetuity  to  us 
of  the  island  of  Hong-Kong.     Of  course  we  got  it.     Then 
we  asked  that  five  ports — Canton,  Amoy,  Foo-Chow-Foo, 
Ningpo,  and  Shanghai — should  be  thrown  open  to  British 
traders,   and   that   consuls   should  be   established  there. 
Needless  to  say  that  this,  too,  was  conceded.     Then  it  was 
agreed  that  the  indemnity  already  mentioned  should  be 
paid  by  the  Chinese  Government — some  four  millions  and 
a  half  sterling,  in  addition  to  one  million  and  a  quarter  as 
compensation  for  the  destroyed  opium.     It  was  also  stipu- 
lated that  correspondence   between   officials   of  the   two 
Governments  was  thenceforth  to  be  carried  on  upon  equal 
terms.     The  war  was  over  for  the  present,  and  the  thanks 
of  both  Houses  of  Parliament  were  voted  to  the  fleet  and 
army  engaged  in  the  operations.     The  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton moved  the  vote  of  thanks  in  the  House  of  Lords.     He 
could  hardly  help,  one  would  think,  forming  in  his  mind 
as  he  spoke  an  occasional  contrast  between  the  services 


140  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

which  he  asked  the  House  to  honor,  and  the  sort  of  war- 
fare which  it  had  been  his  glorious  duty  to  engage  in  so 
long.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  was  a  simple-minded  man, 
with  little  sense  of  humor.  He  did  not,  probably,  per- 
ceive himself  the  irony  that  others  might  have  seen  in  the 
fact  that  the  conqueror  of  Napoleon,  the  victor  in  years  of 
warfare  against  soldiers  unsurpassed  in  history,  should 
have  had  to  move  a  vote  of  thanks  to  the  fleet  and  army 
which  triumphed  over  the  unarmed,  helpless,  childlike 
Chinese. 

The  whole  chapter  of  history  ended,  not  inappropriately 
perhaps,  with  a  rather  pitiful  dispute  between  the  English 
Government  and  the  English  traders  about  the  amount  of 
compensation  to  which  the  latter  laid  claim  for  their  de- 
stroyed opium.  The  Government  were  in  something  of  a 
difficulty;  for  they  had  formally  announced  that  they  were 
resolved  to  let  the  traders  abide  by  any  loss  which  their 
violation  of  the  laws  of  China  might  bring  upon  them. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  had  identified  themselves  by 
the  war  with  the  cause  of  the  traders;  and  one  of  the  con- 
ditions of  peace  had  been  the  compensation  for  the  opium. 
The  traders  insisted  that  the  amount  given  for  this  purpose 
by  the  Chinese  Government  did  not  nearly  meet  their 
losses.  The  English  Government,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  not  admit  that  they  were  bound  in  any  way  further 
to  make  good  the  losses  of  the  merchants.  The  traders 
demanded  to  be  compensated  according  to  the  price  of 
opium  at  the  time  the  seizure  was  made;  a  demand  which, 
if  we  admit  any  claim  at  all,  seems  only  fair  and  reason- 
able. The  Government  had  clearly  undertaken  their  cause 
in  the  end,  and  were  hardly  in  a  position,  either  logical  or 
dignified,  when  they  afterward  chose  to  say,  "  Yes,  we 
admit  that  we  did  undertake  to  get  you  redress,  but  we  do 
not  think  now  that  we  are  bound  to  give  you  full  redress." 
At  last  the  matter  was  compromised ;  the  merchants  had 
to  take  what  they  could  get,  something  considerably  below 
their  demand,  and  give  in  return  to  the  Government  an 


The  Opium  War.  141 

immediate  acquittance  in  full.  It  is  hard  to  get  up  any 
feeling  of  sympathy  with  the  traders  who  lost  on  such  a 
speculation.  It  is  hard  to  feel  any  regret  even  if  the 
Government  which  had  done  so  much  for  them  in  the  war 
treated  them  so  shabbily  when  the  war  was  over;  but  that 
they  were  treated  shabbily  in  the  final  settlement  seems  to 
us  to  allow  of  no  doubt. 

The  Chinese  war,  then,  was  over  for  the  time.  But  as 
the  children  say  that  snow  brings  more  snow,  so  did  that 
war  with  China  bring  other  wars  to  follow  it. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

DECLINE    AND    FALL    OF    THE    WHIG    MINISTRY. 

The  Melbourne  Ministry  kept  going  from  bad  to  worse. 
There  was  a  great  stirring  in  the  country  all  around  them, 
which  made  their  feebleness  the  more  conspicuous.  We 
sometimes  read  in  history  a  defence  of  some  particular 
sovereign  whom  common  opinion  cries  down,  the  defence 
being  a  reference  to  the  number  of  excellent  measures  that 
were  set  in  motion  during  his  reign.  If  we  were  to  judge 
of  the  Melbourne  Ministry  on  the  same  principle,  it  might 
seem,  indeed,  as  if  their  career  was  one  of  extreme  activity 
and  fruitfulness.  Reforms  were  astir  in  almost  every 
direction.  Inquiries  into  the  condition  of  our  poor  and  our 
laboring  classes  were,  to  use  a  cant  phrase  of  the  time,  the 
order  of  the  day.  The  foundation  of  the  colony  of  New 
Zealand  was  laid  with  a  philosophical  deliberation  and 
thoughtfulness  which  might  have  reminded  one  of  Locke 
and  the  Constitution  of  the  Carolinas.  Some  of  the  first 
comprehensive  and  practical  measures  to  mitigate  the 
rigor  and  to  correct  the  indiscriminateness  of  the  death 
punishment  were  taken  during  this  period.  One  of  the 
first  legislative  enactments  which  fairly  acknowledged  the 
difference  between  an  English  wife  and  a  purchased  slave, 
so  far  as  the  despotic  power  of  the  master  was  concerned, 
belongs  to  the  same  time.  This  was  the  Custody  of  In- 
fants Bill,  the  object  of  which  was  to  obtain  for  mothers 
of  irreproachable  conduct,  who  through  no  fault  of  theirs 
were  living  apart  from  their  husbands,  occasional  access 
to  their  children,  with  the  permission  and  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  Equity  Judges.  It  is  curious  to  notice  how  long 
and  how  fiercely  this  modest  measure  of  recognition  for 


Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Whig  Ministry.  143 

what  may  almost  be  called  the  natural  rights  of  a  wife 
and  a  mother  was  disputed  in  Parliament,  or  at  least  in 
the  House  of  Lords. 

It  is  curious,  too,  to  notice  what  a  clamor  was  raised 
over  the  small  contribution  to  the  cause  of  national  educa- 
tion which  was  made  by  the  Melbourne  Government,  In 
1834  the  first  grant  of  public  money  for  the  purposes  of 
elementary  education  was  made  by  Parliament.  The 
sum  granted  was  twenty  thousand  poimds,  and  the  same 
grant  was  made  every  year  until  1839.  Then  Lord  John 
Russell  asked  for  an  increase  of  ten  thousand  pounds,  and 
proposed  a  change  in  the  manner  of  appropriating  the 
money.  Up  to  that  time  the  grant  had  been  distributed 
through  the  National  School  Society,  a  body  in  direct 
connection  with  the  Church  of  England,  and  the  British 
and  Foreign  School  Association,  which  admitted  children 
of  all  Christian  denominations  without  imposing  on  them 
sectarian  teaching.  The  money  was  dispensed  by  the 
Lords  of  the  Treasury,  who  gave  aid  to  applicants  in  pro- 
portion to  the  size  and  cost  of  the  school  buildings  and  the 
number  of  children  who  attended  them.  Naturally  the 
result  of  such  an  arrangement  was  that  the  districts  which 
needed  help  the  most  got  it  the  least.  If  a  place  was  so 
poor  as  not  to  be  able  to  do  anything  for  itself,  the  Lords 
of  the  Treasury  would  do  nothing  for  it.  Naturally,  too, 
the  rich  and  powerful  Church  of  England  secured  the 
greater  part  of  the  grant  for  itself.  There  was  no  inspec- 
tion of  the  schools;  no  reports  were  made  to  Parliament  as 
to  the  manner  in  which  the  system  worked ;  no  steps  were 
taken  to  find  out  if  the  teachers  were  qualified  or  the 
teaching  was  good.  "The  statistics  of  the  schools,"  says 
a  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  "  were  alone  considered 
— the  size  of  the  school-room,  the  cost  of  the  building, 
and  the  number  of  scholars."  In  1839  Lord  John  Russell 
proposed  to  increase  the  grant,  and  an  Order  in  Council 
transferred  its  distribution  to  a  committee  of  the  privy 
council,  composed  of  the  president  and  not  more  than  five 


144  ^  History  of  Our  Ozvn  Times. 

members.  Lord  John  Russell  also  proposed  the  appoint- 
ment of  inspectors,  the  founding  of  a  model  school  for  the 
training  of  teachers,  and  the  establishment  of  infant 
schools.  The  model  school  and  the  infant  schools  were  to 
be  practically  unsectarian.  The  committee  of  the  privy 
council  were  to  be  allowed  to  depart  from  the  principle  of 
proportioning  their  grants  to  the  amount  of  local  contribu- 
tion, to  establish  in  poor  and  crowded  places  schools  not 
necessarily  connected  with  either  of  the  two  educational 
societies,  and  to  extend  their  aid  even  to  schools  where 
the  Roman  Catholic  version  of  the  Bible  was  read.  The 
proposals  of  the  Government  were  fiercely  opposed  in  both 
Houses  of  Parliament.  The  most  various  and  fantastic 
forms  of  bigotry  combined  against  them.  The  appli- 
cation of  public  money,  and  especially  through  the 
hands  of  the  committee  of  privy  council,  to  any  schools 
not  under  the  control  and  authority  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  denounced  as  a  State  recognition  of  popery  and 
heresy.  Scarcely  less  marvellous  to  us  now  are  the 
speeches  of  those  who  promoted  than  of  those  who  opposed 
the  scheme.  Lord  John  Russell  himself,  who  was  much 
in  advance  of  the  common  opinion  of  those  among  whom 
he  moved,  pleaded  for  the  principles  of  his  measure  in  a 
tone  rather  of  apology  than  of  actual  vindication.  He  did 
not  venture  to  oppose  point-blank  the  claim  of  those  who 
insisted  that  it  was  part  of  the  sacred  right  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  to  have  the  teaching  all  done  in  her  own 
way  or  to  allow  no  teaching  at  all. 

The  Government  did  not  get  all  they  sought  for.  They 
had  a  fierce  fight  for  their  grant,  and  an  amendment  moved 
by  Lord  Stanley,  to  the  effect  that  her  Majesty  be  re- 
quested to  revoke  the  Order  in  Council  appointing  the 
Committee  on  Education,  was  only  negatived  by  a  major- 
ity of  two  votes — 275  to  273.  In  the  Lords,  to  which  the 
struggle  was  transferred,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
actually  moved  and  carried  by  a  large  majority  an  address 
to  the  Queen  praying  her  to  revoke  the  Order  in  Council. 


Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Whig  Ministry.  145 

The  Queen  replied  firmly  that  the  funds  voted  by  Parlia- 
ment would  be  found  to  be  laid  out  in  strict  accordance 
with  constitutional  usage,  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  the 
safety  of  the  Established  Church,  and  so  dismissed  the 
question.  The  Government,  therefore,  succeeded  in  es- 
tablishing their  Committee  of  Council  on  Education,  the 
institution  by  which  our  system  of  public  instruction  has 
been  managed  ever  since.  The  ministry,  on  the  whole, 
showed  to  advantage  in  this  struggle.  They  took  up  a 
principle,  and  they  stood  by  it.  If,  as  we  have  said,  the 
speeches  made  by  the  promoters  of  the  scheme  seem  amaz- 
ing to  any  intelligent  person  of  our  time  because  of  the 
feeble,  apologetic,  and  almost  craven  tone  in  which  they 
assert  the  claims  of  a  system  of  national  education,  yet  it 
must  be  admitted  that  the  principle  was  accepted  by  the 
Government  at  some  risk  and  that  it  was  not  shabbily  de- 
serted in  the  face  of  hostile  pressure.  It  is  worth  noticing 
that  \\jhile  the  increased  grant  and  the  principles  on  which 
it  was  to  be  distributed  were  opposed  by  such  men  as  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  Lord  Stanley,  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli, it  had  the  support  of  Mr.  O'Connell  and  of  Mr.  Smith 
O'Brien.  Both  these  Irish  leaders  only  regretted  that  the 
grant  was  not  very  much  larger,  and  that  it  was  not 
appropriated  on  a  more  liberal  principle.  O'Connell  was 
the  recoo-nized  leader  of  the  Irish  Catholics  and  National- 
ists;  Smith  O'Brien  was  an  aristocratic  Protestant.  With 
all  the  weakness  of  the  Whig  Ministry,  their  term  of  office 
must  at  least  be  remarkable  for  the  new  departure  it  took 
in  the  matter  of  national  education.  The  appointment  of 
the  Committee  of  Council  marks  an  epoch. 

Indeed,  the  history  of  that  time  seems  full  of  Reform 
projects.  The  Parliamentary  annals  contain  the  names  of 
various  measures  of  social  and  political  improvement 
which  might  in  themselves,  it  would  seem,  bear  witness 
to  the  most  unsleeping  activity  on  the  part  of  any  minis- 
try. Measures  for  general  registration ;  for  the  reduction 
of  the  stamp  duty  on  newspapers,  and  of  the  duty  on 
Vol.  I. — 10 


146  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

paper;  for  the  improvement  of  the  jail  system;  for  the 
spread  of  vaccination ;  for  the  regulation  of  the  labor  of 
children ;  for  the  prohibition  of  the  employment  of  any 
child  or  young  person  under  twenty-one  in  the  cleaning 
of  chimneys  by  climbing;  for  the  suppression  of  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  pillory;  efforts  to  relieve  the  Jews  from 
civil  disabilities— these  are  but  a  few  of  the  many  projects 
of  social  and  political  reform  that  occupied  the  attention 
of  that  busy  period,  which  somehow  appears,  nevertheless, 
to  have  been  so  sleepy  and  do-nothing.  How  does  it  come 
about  that  we  can  regard  the  ministry  in  whose  time  all 
these  things  were  done  or  attempted  as  exhausted  and 
worthless? 

One  answer  is  plain.  The  reforming  energy  was  in  the 
time  and  not  in  the  ministry.  In  every  instance  public 
opinion  went  far  ahead  of  the  inclinations  of  her  Majesty's 
ministers.  There  was  a  just  and  general  conviction  that 
if  the  Government  were  left  to  themselves  they  would  do 
nothing.  When  they  were  driven  into  any  course  of 
improvement  they  usually  did  all  they  could  to  minimize 
the  amount  of  reform  to  be  effected.  Whatever  they 
undertook  they  seemed  to  undertake  reluctantly,  and  as 
if  only  with  the  object  of  preventing  other  people  from 
having  anything  to  do  with  it.  Naturally,  therefore,  they 
got  little  or  no  thanks  for  any  good  they  might  have  done. 
When  they  brought  in  a  measure  to  abolish  in  various  cases 
the  punishment  of  death,  they  fell  so  far  behind  public 
opinion  and  the  inclinations  of  the  commission  that  had 
for  eight  years  been  inquiring  into  the  state  of  our  crim- 
inal law  that  their  bill  only  passed  by  very  narrow 
majorities,  and  impressed  many  ardent  reformers  as  if  it 
were  meant  rather  to  withhold  than  to  advance  a  genuine 
reform.  In  truth,  it  was  a  period  of  enthusiasm  and  of 
growth,  and  the  ministry  did  not  understand  this.  Lord 
Melbourne  seems  to  have  found  it  hard  to  persuade  him- 
self that  there  was  any  real  anxiety  in  the  mind  of  any  one 
to  do  anything  in  particular.     He  had,  apparently,  got 


Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Whig  Ministry.  147 

into  his  mind  the  conviction  that  the  only  sensible  thing 
the  people  of  England  could  do  was  to  keep  up  the  Mel- 
bourne Ministry,  and  that  being  a  sensible  people,  they 
would  naturally  do  this.  He  had  grown  into  something 
like  the  condition  of  a  pampered  old  hall-porter,  who,  doz- 
ing in  his  chair,  begins  to  look  on  it  as  an  act  of  rudeness 
if  any  visitor  to  his  master  presumes  to  knock  at  the  door 
and  so  disturb  him  from  his  comfortable  rest. 

Any  one  who  doubts  that  it  was  really  a  time  of  enthu- 
siasm in  these  countries  has  only  to  glance  at  its  history. 
The  Church  of  England  and  the  Church  of  Scotland  were 
alike  convulsed  by  movements  which  were  the  offspring 
of  a  genuine  and  irresistible  enthusiasm— enthusiasm  of 
that  strong,  far-reaching  kind  which  makes  epochs  in  the 
history  of   a   church    or   a   people.       In   Ireland   Father 
Mathew,  a  pious  and  earnest  friar,  who  had  neither  elo- 
quence nor  learning  nor  genius,  but  only  enthusiasm  and 
noble  purpose,  had  stirred  the  hearts  of  the  population  in 
the  cause  of  temperance  as  thoroughly  as  Peter  the  Hermit 
might  have  stirred  the  hearts  of  a  people  to  a  crusade. 
Many  of  the  efforts  of  social  reform  which  are  still  periodi- 
cally made  among  ourselves  had  their  beginning  then,  and 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  made  much  advance  from  that 
day  to  this.     In  July,    1840,    Mr.    Hume  moved   in   the 
House  of  Commons  for  an  address  to  the  Throne,  praying 
that  the  British  Museum  and  the  National  Gallery  might 
be  opened  to  the  public  after  Divine  service  on  Sundays, 
"at  such  hours  as  taverns,  beer-shops,  and  gin-shops  are 
legally  opened."     The  motion  was,   of  course,  rejected; 
but  it  is  worthy  of  mention  now  as  an  evidence  of  the 
point  to  which  the  spirit  of  social  reform  had  advanced  at 
a  period  when  Lord  Melbourne  had  seemingly  made  up 
his  mind  that  reform  had  done  enough  for  his  generation, 
and  that  ministers  might  be  allowed,  at  least  during  his 
time,  to  eat  their  meals  in  peace  without  being  disturbed 
by  the  urgencies  of  restless  Radicals,  or  threatened  with 
hostile  majorities  and  Tory  successes. 


14$  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

The  Stoclcdale  case  was  a  disturbance  of  ministerial  re- 
pose which  at  one  time  threatened  to  bring  about  a  collision 
between  the  privileges  of  Parliament  and  the  authorities 
of  the  law  courts.  The  Messrs.  Hansard,  the  well-known 
Parliamentary  printers,  had  published  certain  Parlia- 
mentary reports  on  prisons,  in  which  it  happened  that  a 
book  published  by  J.  J.  Stockdale  was  described  as  obscene 
and  disgusting  in  the  extreme.  Stockdale  proceeded 
against  the  Hansards  for  libel.  The  Hansards  pleaded 
the  authority  of  Parliament;  but  Lord  Chief -justice  Den- 
man  decided  that  the  House  of  Commons  was  not  Parlia- 
ment, and  had  no  authority  to  sanction  the  publication  of 
libels  on  individuals.  Out  of  this  contradiction  of  author- 
ities arose  a  long  and  often  a  very  imseemly  squabble. 
The  House  of  Commons  would  not  give  up  its  privileges; 
the  law  courts  would  not  admit  its  authority.  Judgment 
was  given  by  default  against  the  Hansards  in  one  of  the 
many  actions  for  libel  which  arose  out  of  the  affair,  and 
the  sheriffs  of  London  were  called  on  to  seize  and  sell 
some  of  the  Hansards'  property  to  satisfy  the  demands  of 
the  plaintiff.  The  unhappy  sheriffs  were  placed,  as  the 
homely  old  saying  would  describe  it,  between  the  devil 
and  the  deep  sea.  If  they  touched  the  property  of  the 
Hansards  they  were  acting  in  contempt  of  the  privilege 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  were  liable  to  be  com- 
mitted to  Newgate.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they  refused 
to  carry  out  the  orders  of  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench,  that 
court  would  certainly  send  them  to  prison  for  the  refusal. 
The  realit}'-  of  their  dilemma  was,  in  fact,  very  soon 
provpd.  The  amount  of  the  damages  was  paid  into  the 
Sheriff's  Court  in  order  to  avoid  the  scandal  of  a  sale,  but 
under  protest;  the  House  of  Commons  ordered  the  sheriffs 
to  refund  the  money  to  the  Hansards ;  the  Court  of  Queen's 
Bench  was  moved  for  an  order  to  direct  the  sheriffs  to  pay 
it  over  to  Stockdale.  The  sheriffs  were  finally  committed 
to  the  custody  of  the  sergeant-at-arms  for  contempt  of  the 
House  of  Commons.     The  Court  of  Queen's  Bench  served 


Decline  and  Pall  of  the  IVhig  Ministry.  149 

a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  on  the  sergeant-at-arms  calling  on 
him  to  produce  the  sheriffs  in  court.  The  House  directed 
the  sergeant-at-arms  to  inform  the  court  that  he  held  the 
sheriffs  in  custody  by  order  of  the  Commons.  The  ser- 
geant-at-arm  took  the  sheriffs  to  the  Court  of  Queen's 
Bench  and  made  his  statement  there ;  his  explanation  was 
declared  reasonable  and  sufficient,  and  he  marched  his 
prisoners  back  again.  A  great  deal  of  this  ridiculous  sort 
of  thing  went  on  which  it  is  not  now  necessary  to  describe 
in  any  detail.  The  House  of  Commons,  what  with  the 
arrest  of  the  sheriffs  and  of  agents  acting  on  behalf  of  the 
pertinacious  Stockdale,  had  on  their  hands  batches  of  pris- 
oners with  whom  they  did  not  know  in  the  least  what  to 
do;  the  whole  affair  created  immense  popular  excitement, 
mingled  with  much  ironical  laughter.  At  last  the  Hoiise 
•Df  Commons  had  recourse  to  legislation,  and  Lord  John 
Russell  brought  in  a  bill  on  March  3d,  1840,  to  afford 
summary  protection  to  all  persons  employed  in  the  pub- 
lication of  Parliamentary  papers.  The  preamble  of  the 
measure  declared  "  that  whereas  it  is  essential  to  the  due 
and  effectual  discharge  of  the  functions  and  duties  of  Par- 
liament that  no  obstruction  should  exist  to  the  publication 
of  the  reports,  papers,  votes,  or  proceedings  of  either 
House,  as  such  House  should  deem  fit,"  it  is  to  be  lawful 
"  for  any  person  or  persons  against  whom  any  civil  or 
criminal  proceedings  shall  be  taken  on  account  of  such 
publication  to  bring  before  the  court  a  certificate  under  the 
hand  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  or  the  Speaker,  stating  that 
it  was  published  by  the  authority  of  the  House,  and  the 
proceedings  should  at  once  be  stayed."  This  bill  was  run 
quickly  through  both  Houses — not  without  some  opposi- 
tion or  at  least  murmur  in  the  Upper  House — and  it  be- 
came law  on  April  14th.  It  settled  the  question  satisfac- 
torily enough,  although  it  certainly  did  not  define  the 
relative  rights  of  Parliament  and  the  courts  of  law.  No 
difficulty  of  the  same  kind  has  since  arisen.  The  sheriffs 
and  the  other  prisoners  were  discharged  from  custody  after 


150  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

a  while,  and  the  public   excitement   went   out   in   quiet 
laughter. 

The  question,  however,  was  a  very  serious  one;  and  it 
is  significant  that  public  opinion  was  almost  entirely  on 
the  side  of  the  law  courts  and  the  sheriffs.     The  ministry 
must  have  so  fallen  in  public  favor  as  to  bring  the  House 
of  Commons  into  disrepute  along  with  them,  or  such  a 
sentiment  could  not  have  prevailed  so  widely  out-of-doors. 
The  public  seemed  to  see  nothing  in  the  whole  affair  but 
a  tyrannical  House  of  Commons  wielding  illimitable  pow- 
er against  a  few  humble  individuals,  some  of  whom,  the 
sheriffs,  for  instance,  had  no  share  in  the  controversy  ex- 
cept that  imposed  on  them  by  official  duty.     Accordingly 
the  sheriffs  were  the  heroes  of  the  hour,  and  were  toasted 
and  applauded  all  over  the  country.     Assuredly  it  was  an 
awkward  position  for  the  House  of  Commons  to  be  placed 
in  when  it  had  to  vindicate  its  privileges  by  committing 
to  prison  men  who  were  merely  doing  a  duty  which  the 
law  courts  imposed  on  them.     It  would  have  been  better, 
probably,   if  the  Government   had  more  firmly  asserted 
the  rights  of  the  House  of  Commons  at  the  beginning,  and 
thus  allowed  the  public  to  see  the  real  question  which  the 
whole  controversy  involved.     Nothing  can  be  more  clear 
now  than  the  paramount  importance  of  securing  to  each 
House  of  Parliament  an  absolute  authority  and  freedom  of 
publication.     No  evil  that  could  possibly  arise  out  of  the 
misuse  of  such  a  power  could  be  anything  like  that  certain 
to  come  of  a  state  of  things  which  restricted,  by  libel  laws 
or  otherwise,  the  right  of  either  House  to  publish  what- 
ever it  thought  proper  for  the  public  good.     Not  a  single 
measure  for  the  reform  of  any  great  grievance,  from  the 
abolition  of  slavery  to  the  passing  of  the  Factory  Acts, 
but  might  have  been  obstructed,  and  perhaps  even  pre- 
vented, if  the  free  exposure  of  existing  evils  were  denied 
to  the  Houses  of  Parliament.      In  this  country,  Parliament 
only  works  through  the  power  of  public  opinion.     A  social 
reform  is  not  carried  out  simply  by  virtue  of  the  decisiou 


Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Whig  Ministry.  1 5 1 

of  a  cabinet  that  something  ought  to  be  done.  The  atten- 
tion of  the  Legislature  and  of  the  public  has  to  be  called 
to  the  grievance  again  and  again,  by  speeches,  resolutions, 
debates,  and  divisions,  before  there  is  any  chance  of  carry- 
ing a  measure  on  the  subject.  When  public  opinion  is 
ripe,  and  is  strong  enough  to  help  the  Government  through 
with  a  reform  in  spite  of  prejudice  and  vested  interests, 
then,  and  not  till  then,  the  reform  is  carried.  But  it 
would  be  hardly  possible  to  bring  the  matter  up  to  this 
stage  of  growth  if  those  who  were  interested  in  upholding 
a  grievance  had  the  power  of  worrying  the  publishers  of 
the  Parliamentary  reports  by  legal  proceedings  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  the  discussion.  Nor  would  it  be  of  any 
use  to  protect  merely  the  freedom  of  debate  in  Parliament 
itself.  It  is  not  through  debate,  but  through  publication, 
that  the  public  opinion  of  the  country  is  reached.  In 
truth,  the  poorer  a  man  is,  the  weaker  and  the  humbler, 
the  greater  need  is  there  that  he  should  call  out  for  the  full 
freedom  of  publication  to  be  vested  in  the  hands  of  Parlia-. 
ment.  The  factory  child,  the  climbing  boy,  the  appren- 
tice under  colonial  systems  of  modified  slavery,  the  sea- 
man sent  to  sea  in  the  rotten  ship;  the  woman  clad  in 
unwomanly  rags  who  sings  her  "Song  of  a  Shirt;"  the 
other  woman,  almost  literally  unsexed  in  form,  function, 
and  soul,  who  in  her  filthy  trousers  of  sacking  dragged  on 
all-fours  the  coal  trucks  in  the  mines — these  are  the  tyrants 
and  the  monopolists  for  whom  we  assert  the  privilege  of 
Parliamentary  publication. 

The  operations  which  took  place  about  this  time  in 
Syria  belong,  perhaps,  rather  to  the  general  history  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire  than  to  that  of  England.  But  they  had 
so  important  a  bearing  on  the  relations  between  this  coun- 
try and  France,  and  are  so  directly  connected  with  subse- 
quent events  in  which  England  bore  a  leading  part,  that 
it  would  be  impossible  to  pass  them  over  without  some 
notice  here.  Mohammed  Ali,  Pasha  of  Egypt,  the  most 
powerful  of  all  the  Sultan's  feudatories,  a  man  of  iron  will 


152  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

and  great  capacity  both  for  war  and  administration,  had 
made  himself  for  a  time  master  of  Syria.  By  the  aid  of 
the  warlike  qualities  of  his  adopted  son,  Ibrahim  Pasha, 
he  had  defeated  the  armies  of  the  Porte  wherever  he  had 
encountered  them.  Mohammed's  victories  had,  for  the 
time,  compelled  the  Porte  to  allow  him  to  remain  in 
power  in  Syria;  but  the  Sultan  had  long  been  preparing 
to  try  another  effort  for  the  reduction  of  his  ambitious 
vassal.  In  1S39  the  Sultan  again  declared  war  against 
Mohammed  Ali.  Ibrahim  Pasha  again  obtained  an  over- 
whelming victory  over  the  Turkish  army.  The  energetic 
Sultan  Mahmoud,  a  man  not  unworthy  to  cope  with  such 
an  adversary  as  Mohammed  Ali,  died  suddenly;  and 
immediately  after  his  death  the  Capitan  Pasha,  or  Lord 
High  Admiral  of  the  Ottoman  fleet,  went  over  to  the 
Egyptians  with  all  his  vessels;  an  act  of  almost  unex- 
ampled treachery  even  in  the  history  of  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire. It  was  evident  that  Turkey  was  not  able  to  hold 
her  own  against  the  formidable  Mohammed  and  his  suc- 
cessful son;  and  the  policy  of  the  Western  Powers  of 
Europe,  and  of  England  especially,  had  long  been  to 
maintain  the  Ottoman  Empire  as  a  necessary  part  of  the 
common  State  system.  The  policy  of  Russia  was  to  keep 
up  that  empire  as  long  as  it  suited  her  own  purposes;  to 
take  care  that  no  other  Power  got  anything  out  of  Turkey ; 
and  to  prepare  the  way  for  such  a  partition  of  the  spoils 
of  Turkey  as  would  satisfy  Russian  interests.  Russia, 
therefore,  was  to  be  found  now  defending  Turkey,  and 
now  assailing  her.  The  course  taken  by  Russia  was  seem- 
ingly inconsistent;  but  it  was  only  inconsistent  as  the 
course  of  a  sailing  ship  may  be  which  now  tacks  to  this  side 
and  now  to  that,  but  has  a  clear  object  in  view  and  a  port 
to  reach  all  the  while.  England  was  then,  and  for  a  long 
time  after,  steadily  bent  on  preserving  the  Turkish  Em- 
pire, and  in  a  great  measure  as  a  rampart  against  the 
schemes  and  ambitions  imputed  to  Russia  herself.  France 
was  less  firmly  set  on  the  maintenance  of  Turkey ;  and 


Decline  and  Fall  of  the  IVb/g  Ministry.  1 33 

France,  moreover,  had  got  it  into  her  mind  that  England 
had  designs  of  her  own  on  Egypt.  Austria  was  disposed 
to  go  generally  with  England ;  Prussia  was  little  more  than 
a  nominal  sharer  in  the  alliance  that  was  now  tinkered  up. 
It  is  evident  that  such  an  alliance  could  not  be  very  harmo- 
nious or  direct  in  its  action.  It  was,  however,  effective 
enough  to  prove  too  strong  for  the  Pasha  of  Egypt.  A 
fleet  made  up  of  English,  Austrian,  and  Turkish  vessels 
bombarded  Acre ;  an  allied  army  drove  the  Egyptians  from 
several  of  their  strongholds.  Ibrahim  Pasha,  with  all  his 
courage  and  genius,  was  not  equal  to  the  odds  against 
which  he  now  saw  himself  forced  to  contend.  He  had  to 
succumb.  No  one  could  doubt  that  he  and  his  father  were 
incomparably  better  able  to  give  good  government  and 
the  chances  of  development  to  Syria  than  the  Porte  had 
ever  been.  But  in  this  instance,  as  in  others,  the  odious 
principle  was  upheld  by  England  and  her  actual  allies 
that  the  Turkish  Empire  must  be  maintained,  at  no  mat- 
ter what  cost  of  suffering  and  degradation  to  its  subject 
populations.  Mohammed  Ali  was  deprived  of  all  his 
Asiatic  possessions,  but  was  secured  in  his  government  of 
Egypt.  A  convention  signed  at  London  on  July  15th,  1840, 
arranged  for  the  imposition  of  those  terms  on  Mohammed 
Ali. 

The  convention  was  signed  by  the  representatives  of 
Great  Britain,  Austria,  Prussia,  and  Russia  on  the  one 
part,  and  of  the  Ottoman  Porte  on  the  other.  The  name 
of  France  was  not  found  there.  France  had  drawn  back 
from  the  alliance,  and  for  some  time  seemed  as  if  she  were 
likely  to  take  arms  against  it.  M.  Thiers  was  then  her 
Prime-minister ;  he  was  a  man  of  quick  fancy,  restless  and 
ambitious  temperament,  and  what  we  cannot  help  calling 
a  vulgar  spirit  of  national  self-sufficiency — we  are  speak- 
ing now  of  the  Thiers  of  1840,  not  of  the  wise  and  capable 
statesman,  tempered  and  tried  by  the  fire  of  adversity, 
who  reorganized  France  out  of  the  ruin  and  welter  of  1870. 
Thiers  persuaded  himself  and  the  great  majority  of  his 


154  A  History  of  Our  Oivn  Times. 

countrymen  that  England  was  bent  upon  driving  Moham- 
med Ali  out  of  Egypt  as  well  as  out  of  Syria,  and  that 
her  object  was  to  obtain  possession  of  Egypt  for  herself. 
For  some  months  it  seemed  as  if  war  were  inevitable  be- 
tween England  and  France,  although  there  was  not  in 
reality  the  slightest  reason  why  the  two  States  should 
quarrel.  France  was  just  as  far  away  from  any  thought 
of  a  really  disinterested  foreign  policy  as  England.  Eng- 
land, on  the  other  hand,  had  not  the  remotest  idea  of 
becoming  the  possessor  of  Egypt.  Fortunately  Louis 
Philippe  and  M.  Guizot  were  both  strongly  in  favor  of 
peace;  M.  Thiers  resigned;  and  M.  Guizot  became  Min- 
ister for  Foreign  Affairs,  and  virtually  head  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. Thiers  defended  his  policy  in  the  French 
Chamber  in  a  scream  of  passionate  and  almost  hysterical 
declamation.  Again  and  again  he  declared  that  his  mind 
had  been  made  up  to  go  to  war  if  England  did  not  at  once 
give  way  and  modify  the  terms  of  the  convention  of  July. 
It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Thiers  carried  with  him  much 
of  the  excited  public  feeling  of  France.  But  the  King 
and  M.  Guizot  were  happily  supported  by  the  majority  in 
and  out  of  the  Chambers;  and  on  July  13th,  1841,  the 
Treaty  of  London  was  signed,  which  provided  for  the  set- 
tlement of  the  affairs  of  Egypt  on  the  basis  of  the  arrange- 
ment already  made,  and  which  contained,  moreover,  the 
stipulation,  to  be  referred  to  more  than  once  hereafter,  by 
which  the  Sultan  declared  himself  firmly  resolved  to  main- 
tain the  ancient  principle  of  his  empire — that  no  foreign 
ship  of  war  was  to  be  admitted  into  the  Dardanelles  and 
the  Bosphorus,  with  the  exception  of  light  vessels  for  which 
a  firman  was  granted. 

The  public  of  this  country  had  taken  but  little  interest 
in  the  controversy  about  Egypt,  at  least  until  it  seemed 
likely  to  involve  England  in  a  war  with  France.  Some 
of  the  episodes  of  the  war  were  indeed  looked  upon  with 
a  certain  satisfaction  by  people  here  at  home.  The  brav- 
ery   of    Charles    Napier,  the   hot-headed,    self-conceited 


Decline  and  Fall  of  the  IVbfg  Ministry.  is=> 

commodore,  was  enthnsiastically  extolled,  and  his  feats 
of  successful  audacity  were  glorified  as  though  they  had 
shown  the  genius  of  a  Nelson  or  the  clever  resource  of 
a  Cochrane.  Not  many  of  Napier's  admirers  cared  a  rush 
about  the  merits  of  the  quarrel  between  the  Porte  and  the 
Pasha.  Most  of  them  would  have  been  just  as  well  pleased 
if  Napier  had  been  fighting  for  the  Pasha  and  against  the 
Porte ;  not  a  few  were  utterly  ignorant  as  to  whether  he 
was  fighting  for  Porte  or  for  Pasha.  Those  who  claimed 
to  be  more  enlightened  had  a  sort  of  general  idea  that  it 
was  in  some  way  essential  to  the  safety  and  glory  of  Eng- 
land that  whenever  Turkey  was  in  trouble  we  should  at 
once  become  her  champions,  tame  her  rebels,  and  conquer 
her  enemies.  Unfounded  as  were  the  suspicions  of  French- 
men about  our  designs  upon  Egypt,  they  can  hardly  be 
called  ver}^  unreasonable.  Even  a  very  cool  and  impar- 
tial Frenchman  might  be  led  to  the  conclusion  that  free 
England  would  not  without  some  direct  purpose  of  her 
own  have  pledged  herself  to  the  cause  of  a  base  and  a 
decaying  despotism. 

Steadily,  meanwhile,  did  the  ministry  go  from  bad  to 
worse.  They  had  greatly  damaged  their  character  by  the 
manner  in  which  they  had  again  and  again  put  up  with 
defeat,  and  consented  to  resume  or  retain  office  on  any 
excuse  or  pretext.  They  were  remarkably  bad  adminis- 
trators ;  their  finances  were  wretchedly  managed.  In  later 
times  we  have  come  to  regard  the  Tories  as  especially 
weak  in  the  matter  of  finance.  A  well-managed  revenue 
and  a  comfortable  surplus  are  generally  looked  upon  as  in 
some  way  or  other  the  monopoly  of  a  Liberal  adminis- 
tration; while  lavish  expenditure,  deficit,  and  increased 
taxation  are  counted  among  the  necessary  accompaniments 
of  a  Tory  Government.  So  nearly  does  public  opinion  on 
both  sides  go  to  accepting  these  conditions,  that  there  are 
many  Tories  who  take  it  rather  as  a  matter  of  pride  that 
their  leaders  are  not  mean  economists,  and  who  regard  a 
free-handed  expenditure  of  the  national  revenue  as  some- 


156  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

thing  peculiarly  gentleman-like,  and  in  keeping  with  the 
honorable  traditions  of  a  great  conntr)'  party.  But  this 
was  not  the  idea  which  prevailed  in  the  days  of  the  Mel- 
bourne Ministry.  Then  the  universal  conviction  was  that 
the  Whigs  were  incapable  of  managing  the  finances.  The 
budget  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Mr.  Baring, 
showed  a  deficiency  of  nearly  two  millions.  This  defi- 
ciency he  proposed  to  meet  in  part  by  alteration  in  the 
sugar  duties ;  but  the  House  of  Commons,  after  a  long  de- 
bate, rejected  his  proposals  by  a  majority  of  thirty-six. 
It  was  then  expected,  of  course,  that  ministers  would 
resign ;  but  they  were  not  yet  willing  to  accept  the  conse- 
quences of  defeat.  They  thought  they  had  another  stone 
in  their  sling.  Lord  John  Russell  had  previously  given 
notice  of  his  intention  to  move  for  a  committee  of  the 
whole  House  to  consider  the  state  of  legislation  with  regard 
to  the  trade  in  corn ;  and  he  now  brought  forward  an  an- 
nouncement of  his  plan,  which  was  to  propose  a  fixed 
duty  of  eight  shillings  per  quarter  on  wheat,  and  propor- 
tionately diminished  rates  on  rye,  barley,  and  oats.  Ex- 
cept for  its  effect  on  the  fortunes  of  the  Melbourne  Ministry 
there  is  not  the  slightest  importance  to  be  attached  to  this 
proposal.  It  was  an  experiment  in  the  direction  of  the 
Free-traders,  who  were  just  beginning  to  be  powerful, 
although  they  were  not  nearly  strong  enough  yet  to  dictate 
the  policy  of  a  government.  We  shall  have  to  tell  the 
story  of  Free-trade  hereafter;  this  present  incident  is  no 
part  of  the  history  of  a  great  movement;  it  is  merely  a 
small  party  dodge.  It  deceived  no  one.  Lord  Melbourne 
had  always  spoken  with  the  uttermost  contempt  of  the 
Free-trade  agitation.  With  characteristic  oaths,  he  had 
declared  that  of  all  the  mad  things  he  had  ever  heard 
suggested,  Free-trade  was  the  maddest.  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell himself,  although  far  more  enlightened  than  the 
Prime-minister,  had  often  condemned  and  sneered  at  the 
demand  for  Free-trade.  The  conversion  of  the  ministers 
into  the  official  advocates  of  a  moderate  fixed  duty  was 


Decline  and  Fall  of  the  IVbig  Ministry.  157 

all  too  sudden  for  the  conscience,  for  the  very  stomach  of 
the  nation.  Public  opinion  would  not  endure  it.  Nothing 
but  harm  came  to  the  Whigs  from  the  attempt.  Instead 
of  any  new  adherents  or  fresh  sympathy  being  won  for 
them  by  their  proposal,  people  only  asked,  "Will  nothing, 
then,  turn  them  out  of  office?  Will  they  never  have  done 
with  trying  new  tricks  to  keep  in  place?" 

Sir  Robert  Peel  took,  in  homely  phrase,  the  bull  by  the 
horns.  He  proposed  a  direct  vote  of  want  of  confidence — 
a  resolution  declaring  that  ministers  did  not  possess  confi- 
dence of  the  House  sufficiently  to  enable  them  to  carry 
through  the  measures  which  they  deemed  of  essential 
importance  to  the  public  welfare,  and  that  their  continu- 
ance in  office  under  such  circumstances  was  at  variance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution.  On  June  4th,  1841, 
the  division  was  taken ;  and  the  vote  of  no-confidence  was 
carried  by  a  majority  of  one.  Even  the  Whigs  could  not 
stand  this.  Lord  Melbourne  at  last  began  to  think  that 
things  were  looking  serious.  Parliament  was  dissolved, 
and  the  result  of  the  general  election  was  that  the  Tories 
were  found  to  have  a  majority  even  greater  than  they 
themselves  had  anticipated.  The  moment  the  new  Parlia- 
ment was  assembled,  amendments  to  the  address  were 
carried  in  both  Houses  in  a  sense  hostile  to  the  Govern- 
ment. Lord  Melbourne  and  his  colleagues  had  to  resign, 
and  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  intrusted  with  the  task  of  forming 
an  administration. 

We  have  not  much  more  to  do  with  Lord  Melbourne  in 
this  history.  He  merely  drops  out  of  it.  Between  his 
expulsion  from  office  and  his  death,  which  took  place  in 
1848,  he  did  little  or  nothing  to  call  for  the  notice  of  any 
one.  It  was  said  at  one  time  that  his  closing  years  were 
lonesome  and  melancholy ;  but  this  has  lately  been  denied, 
and  indeed  it  is  not  likely  that  one  who  had  such  a  genial 
temper  and  so  many  friends  could  have  been  left  to  the 
dreariness  of  a  not  self-sufficing  solitude  and  to  the  bitter- 
ness of  neglect.     He  was  a  generous  and  kindly  man ;  his 


1^8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

personal  character,  although  often  assailed,  was  free  of  any 
serious  reproach ;  he  was  a  failure  in  office,  not  so  much 
from  want  of  ability,  as  because  he  was  a  politician  with- 
out convictions. 

The  Peel  Ministry  came  into  power  with  great  hopes. 
It  had  Lord  Lyndhurst  for  Lord  Chancellor;  Sir  James 
Graham  for  Home  Secretary ;  Lord  Aberdeen  at  the  Foreign 
Office ;  Lord  Stanley  was  Colonial  Secretary.  The  most 
remarkable  man  not  in  the  cabinet,  soon  to  be  one  of  the 
foremost  statesmen  in  the  country,  was  Mr.  W.  E.  Glad- 
stone. It  is  a  fact  of  some  significance  in  the  history  of  the 
Peel  administration  that  the  elections  which  brought  the 
new  ministry  into  power  brought  Mr.  Cobden  for  the  first 
time  into  the  House  of  Commons. 


CHAPTER  X. 

MOVEMENTS  IN  THE  CHURCHES. 

While  Lord  Melbourne  and  his  Whig  colleagues,  still 
in  office,  were  fribbling  away  their  popularity  on  the 
pleasant  assumption  that  nobody  was  particularly  in  ear- 
nest about  anything,  the  Vice-chancellor  and  heads  of 
houses  held  a  meeting  at  Oxford,  and  passed  a  censure  on 
the  celebrated  "  No.  90, "  of  "  Tracts  for  the  Times. "  The 
movement,  of  which  some  important  tendencies  were 
formally  censured  in  the  condemnation  of  this  tract,  was 
one  of  the  most  momentous  that  had  stirred  the  Church  of 
England  since  the  Reformation.  The  author  of  the  tract 
was  Dr.  John  Henry  Newman,  and  the  principal  ground 
for  its  censure,  by  voices  claiming  authority,  was  the 
principle  it  seemed  to  put  forward — that  a  man  might 
honestly  subscribe  to  all  the  articles  and  formularies  of  the 
English  Church,  while  yet  holding  many  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  against  which  those  articles  were 
regarded  as  a  necessary  protest.  The  great  movement 
which  was  thus  brought  into  sudden  question  and  publi- 
city was  in  itself  an  offspring  of  the  immense  stirring  of 
thought  which  the  French  Revolution  called  up,  and  which 
had  its  softened  echo  in  the  English  Reform  Bill.  The 
centre  of  the  religious  movement  was  to  be  found  in  the 
University  of  Oxford.  When  it  is  in  the  right,  and  when 
it  is  in  the  wrong,  Oxford  has  always  had  more  of  the 
sentimental  and  of  the  poetic  in  its  cast  of  thought  than 
its  rival  or  colleague  of  Cambridge.  There  were  two  in- 
fluences then  in  operation  over  England,  both  of  which 
alike  aroused  the  alarm  and  the  hostility  of  certain  gifted 
and  enthusiastic  young  Oxford  men.   One  was  the  tendency 


i6o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

to  Rationalism  drawn  from  the  German  theologians;  the 
other  was  the  manner  in  which  the  connection  of  the 
Church  with  the  State  in  England  was  beginning  to  oper- 
ate to  the  disadvantage  of  the  Church  as  a  sacred  institu- 
tion and  teacher.  The  Reform  party  everywhere  were 
assailing  the  rights  and  property  of  the  Church.  In  Ireland, 
especially,  experiments  were  made  which  every  practical 
man  will  now  regard  with  approval,  whether  he  be  Church- 
man or  not,  but  which  seemed  to  the  devoted  ecclesiast  of 
Oxford  to  be  fraught  with  danger  to  the  freedom  and  in- 
fluence of  the  Church.  Out  of  the  contemplation  of  these 
dangers  sprang  the  desire  to  revive  the  authority  of  the 
Church ;  to  quicken  her  with  a  new  vitality ;  to  give  her 
once  again  that  place  as  guide  and  inspirer  of  the  national 
life  which  her  ardent  votaries  believed  to  be  hers  by  right, 
and  to  have  been  forfeited  only  by  the  carelessness  of  her 
authorities,  and  their  failure  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  her 
Heaven-assigned  mission. 

No  movement  could  well  have  had  a  purer  source.  None 
could  have  had  more  disinterested  and  high-minded  pro- 
moters. It  was  borne  in  upon  some  earnest,  unresting  souls, 
like  that  of  the  sweet  and  saintly  Keble — souls  "without 
haste  and  without  rest,"  like  Goethe's  star — that  the 
Church  of  England  had  higher  duties  and  nobler  claims 
than  the  business  of  preaching  harmless  sermons  and  the 
power  of  enriching  bishops.  Keble  could  not  bear  to  think 
of  the  Church  taking  pleasure  since  all  is  well.  He  urged 
on  some  of  the  more  vigorous  and  thoughtful  minds  around 
him,  or  rather  he  suggested  it  by  his  influence  and  his  ex- 
ample, that  they  should  reclaim  for  the  Church  the  place 
which  ought  to  be  hers  as  the  true  successor  of  the  Apos- 
tles. He  claimed  for  her  that  she,  and  she  alone,  was  the 
real  Catholic  Church,  and  that  Rome  had  wandered  away 
from  the  right  path,  and  foregone  the  glorious  mission 
which  she  might  have  maintained.  Among  those  who 
shared  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  Keble  were  Richard  Hur- 
rell  Froude,  the  historian's  elder  brother,  who  gave  rich 


Movements  in  the  Churches,  16 1 

promise  of  a  splendid  career,  but  who  died  while  still  in 
comparative  youth;  Dr.  Pusey,  afterward  leader  of  the 
school  of  ecclesiasticism  which  bears  his  name;  and,  most 
eminent  of  all,  Dr.  Newman.  Keble  had  taken  part  in  the 
publication  of  a  series  of  treatises  called  "  Tracts  for  the 
Times,"  the  object  of  which  was  to  vindicate  the  real  mis- 
sion, as  the  writers  believed,  of  the  Church  of  England. 
This  was  the  Tractarian  movement,  which  had  such  var- 
ious and  memorable  results.  Newman  first  started  the 
project  of  the  Tracts,  and  wrote  the  most  remarkable  of 
them.  He  had,  up  to  his  time,  been  distinguished  as  one 
of  the  most  unsparing  enemies  of  Rome.  At  the  same 
time  he  was,  as  he  has  himself  said,  "fierce"  against  the 
"  instruments"  and  the  "  manifestations"  of  "  the  Liberal 
cause."  While  he  was  at  Algiers  once,  a  French  vessel 
put  in  there,  flying  the  tricolor.  Newman  would  not  even 
look  at  her.  "  On  my  return,  though  forced  to  stop  twenty- 
four  hours  at  Paris,  I  kept  indoors  the  whole  time,  and 
all  that  I  saw  of  that  beautiful  city  was  what  I  saw  from 
the  diligence."  He  had  never  had  any  manner  of  associa- 
tion with  Roman  Catholics;  had,  in  fact,  known singularl)' 
little  of  them.  As  Newman  studied  and  wrote  concerning 
the  best  way  to  restore  the  Church  of  England  to  her 
proper  place  in  the  national  life,  he  kept  the  thought  be- 
fore him  "  that  there  was  something  greater  than  the 
Established  Church,  and  that  that  was  the  Church  Catholic 
and  Apostolic,  set  up  from  the  beginning,  of  which  she 
was  but  the  local  presence  and  the  organ.  She  was  nothing 
unless  she  was  this.  She  must  be  dealt  with  strongly,  or 
she  would  be  lost.  There  was  need  of  a  second  Reforma- 
tion. "  At  this  time  the  idea  of  leaving  the  Church  never, 
Dr.  Newman  himself  assures  us,  had  crossed  his  imagina- 
tion. He  felt  alarmed  for  the  Church  between  German 
Rationalism  and  man-of-the-world  liberalism.  His  fear 
was  that  the  Church  would  sink  to  be  the  servile  instru- 
ment of  a  State,  and  a  Liberal  State. 

The  abilities  of  Dr.  Newman  were  hardly  surpassed  by 
Vol.  I.— II 


i62  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

any  contemporary  in  any  department  of  thought.  His 
position  and  influence  in  Oxford  were  almost  unique. 
There  was  in  his  intellectual  temperament  a  curious  com- 
bination of  the  mystic  and  the  logical.  He  was  at  once  a 
poetic  dreamer  and  a  sophist — in  the  true  and  not  the 
corrupt  and  ungenerous  sense  of  the  latter  word.  It  had 
often  been  said  of  him  and  of  another  great  Englishman 
that  a  change  in  their  early  conditions  and  training  would 
easily  have  made  of  Newman  a  Stuart  Mill,  and  of  Mill  a 
Newman.  England,  in  our  time,  has  hardly  had  a  greater 
master  of  argument  and  of  English  prose  than  Newman. 
He  is  one  of  the  keenest  of  dialecticians;  and,  like  Mill, 
has  the  rare  art  that  dissolves  all  the  difficulties  of  the  most 
abstruse  or  perplexed  subject,  and  shows  it  bare  and  clear 
even  to  the  least  subtle  of  readers.  His  words  dispel 
mists;  and  whether  they  who  listen  agree  or  not,  they 
cannot  fail  to  understand.  A  penetrating,  poignant,  sa- 
tirical humor  is  found  in  most  of  his  writings,  an  irony 
sometimes  piercing  suddenly  through  it  like  a  darting 
pain.  On  the  other  hand,  a  generous  vein  of  poetry  and 
of  pathos  informs  his  style ;  and  there  are  many  passages 
of  his  works  in  which  he  rises  to  the  height  of  a  genuine 
and  noble  eloquence. 

In  all  the  arts  that  make  a  great  preacher  or  orator  New- 
man was  strikingly  deficient.  His  manner  was  constrained, 
tmgraceful,  and  even  awkward;  his  voice  was  thin  and 
weak.  His  bearing  was  not  at  first  impressive  in  any 
way.  A  gaunt,  emaciated  figure,  a  sharp  and  eagle  face, 
a  cold,  meditative  eye,  rather  repelled  than  attracted 
those  who  saw  him  for  the  first  time.  Singularly  devoid 
of  affectation,  Newman  did  not  always  conceal  his  intel- 
lectual scorn  of  men  who  made  loud  pretence  with  inferior 
gifts,  and  the  men  must  have  been  few  indeed  whose  gifts 
were  not  inferior  to  his.  Newman  had  no  scorn  for  intel- 
lectual inferiority  in  itself;  he  despised  it  only  when  it 
gave  itself  airs.  His  influence  while  he  was  the  vicar  of 
St.   Mary's  at  Oxford  was  profound.     As  Mr.  Gladstone 


Movements  in  the  Churches,  163 

said  of  him  in  a  recent  speech,  "without  ostentation  or 
effort, but  by  simple  excellence,  he  was  continually  drawing 
undergraduates  more  and  more  around  him."  Mr.  Glad- 
stone in  the  same  speech  gave  a  description  of  Dr.  New- 
man's pulpit  style  which  is  interesting:  "Dr.  Newman's 
manner  in  the  pulpit  was  one  which,  if  you  considered  it 
in  its  separate  parts,  would  lead  you  to  arrive  at  very  un- 
satisfactory conclusions.  There  was  not  very  much  change 
in  the  inflection  of  the  voice;  action  there  was  none;  his 
sermons  were  read,  and  his  eyes  were  always  on  his  book; 
and  all  that,  you  will  say,  is  against  efficiency  in  preach- 
ing. Yes;  but  you  take  the  man  as  a  whole,  and  there  was 
a  stamp  and  a  seal  upon  him,  there  was  a  solemn  music 
and  sweetness  in  his  tone,  there  was  a  completeness  in  the 
figure,  taken  together  with  the  tone  and  with  the  manner, 
which  made  even  his  delivery,  such  as  I  have  described 
it,  and  though  exclusively  with  written  sermons,  singu- 
larly attractive."  The  stamp  and  seal  were,  indeed,  those 
which  are  impressed  by  genius,  piety,  and  earnestness. 
No  opponent  ever  spoke  of  Newman  but  with  admiration 
for  his  intellect  and  respect  for  his  character.  Dr.  New- 
man had  a  younger  brother,  Francis  W.  Newman,  who 
also  possessed  remarkable  ability  and  earnestness.  He, 
too,  was  distinguished  at  Oxford,  and  seemed  to  have  a 
great  career  there  before  him.  But  he  was  drawn  one 
way  by  the  wave  of  thought  before  his  more  famous 
brother  had  been  drawn  the  other  way.  In  1830,  the 
younger  Newman  found  himself  prevented  by  religious 
scruples  from  subscribing  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  for  his 
master's  degree.  He  left  the  university,  and  wandered 
for  years  in  the  East,  endeavoring,  not  very  successfully, 
perhaps,  to  teach  Christianity  on  its  broadest  base  to 
Mohammedans;  and  then  he  came  back  to  England  to 
take  his  place  among  the  leaders  of  a  certain  school  of 
free  thought.  Fate  had  dealt  with  those  brothers  as  with 
the  two  friends  in  Richter's  story:  it  "seized  their  bleed- 
ing hearts,  and  flung  them  different  ways. " 


164  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

When  Dr.  Newman  wrote  the  famous  Tract  "  No.  90," 
for  which  he  was  censured,  he  bowed  to  the  authority  of 
his  bishop,  if  not  to  that  of  the  heads  of  houses;  and  he  dis- 
continued the  publication  of  such  treatises.  But  he  did 
not  admit  any  change  of  opinion ;  and,  indeed,  soon  after, 
he  edited  a  publication  called  The  British  Critic,  in  which 
many  of  the  principles  held  to  be  exclusively  those  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  were  enthusiastically  claimed  for  the 
English  Church.  Yet  a  little  and  the  gradual  working  of 
Newman's  mind  became  evident  to  all  the  world.  The 
brightest  and  most  penetrating  intellect  in  the  Church  of 
England  was  withdrawn  from  her  service,  and  Newman 
went  over  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  His  secession  was  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Disraeli,  a  quarter  of  a  century  afterward, 
as  having  "  dealt  a  blow  to  the  Church  of  England  under 
which  she  still  reels."  To  this  result  had  the  inquiry 
conducted  him  which  had  led  his  friend,  Dr.  Pusey,  merely 
to  endeavor  to  incorporate  some  of  the  mysticism  and  the 
symbols  of  Rome  with  the  ritual  of  the  English  Protestant 
Church ;  which  had  brought  Keble  only  to  seek  a  more 
liberal  and  truly  Christian  temper  for  the  faith  of  the 
Protestant;  and  which  had  sent  Francis  Newman  into 
Radicalism  and  Rationalism. 

In  truth,  it  is  not  diflficult  now  to  understand  how  the 
elder  Newman's  mind  became  drawn  toward  the  ancient 
Church  which  won  him  at  last.  We  can  see  from  his  own 
candid  account  of  his  earlier  sentiments  how  profoundly 
mystical  was  his  intellectual  nature,  and  how,  long  before 
he  was  conscious  of  any  such  tendency,  he  was  drawn 
toward  the  very  symbolisms  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
Pascal's  early  and  unexplained  mastery  of  mathematical 
problems  which  no  one  had  taught  him  is  not  more  sug- 
gestive in  its  ways  than  those  early  drawings  of  Catholic 
symbols  and  devices  which,  done  in  his  childhood,  New- 
man says,  surprised  and  were  inexplicable  to  him  when  he 
came  on  them  in  years  long  after.  No  place  could  be  bet- 
ter  fitted   to   encourage    and    develop    this   tendency    to 


Movements  in  the  Churches.  163 

mysticism  in  a  thoughtful  mind  than  Oxford,  with  all  its 
noble  memories  of  scholars  and  of  priests,  with  its  pictur- 
esque and  poetic  surroundings,  and  its  never-fading  medi- 
sevalism.  Newman  lived  in  the  past.  His  spirit  was 
with  mediaeval  England.  His  thoughts  were  of  a  time 
when  one  Church  took  charge  of  the  souls  of  a  whole  united, 
devout  people,  and  stood  as  the  guide  and  authority  ap- 
pointed for  them  by  Heaven.  He  thought  of  such  a  time 
■until  first  he  believed  in  it  as  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  next 
came  to  have  faith  in  the  possibility  of  its  restoration  as 
a  thing  of  the  present  and  the  future.  When  once  he  had 
come  to  this  point  the  rest  followed,  " as  by  lot  God  wot." 
No  creature  could  for  a  moment  suppose  that  that  ideal 
Church  was  to  be  found  in  the  English  Establishment, 
submitted  as  it  was  to  State-made  doctrine,  and  to  the  decis- 
ion of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  who  might  be  an  infidel  or  a 
free-liver.  The  question  which  Cardinal  Manning  tells 
us  he  asked  himself  years  after,  at  the  time  of  the  Gorham 
case,  must  often  have  presented  itself  to  the  mind  of  New- 
man— Suppose  all  the  Bishops  of  the  Church  of  England 
should  decide  unanimously  on  any  question  of  doctrine, 
would  any  one  receive  the  decision  as  infallible?  Of 
course  not.  Such  is  not  the  genius  or  the  principle  of  the 
English  Church.  The  Church  of  England  has  no  preten- 
sion to  be  considered  the  infallible  guide  of  the  people  in 
matters  even  of  doctrine.  Were  she  seriously  to  put  for- 
ward any  such  pretension,  it  would  be  rejected  with  con- 
tempt by  the  common  mind  of  the  nation.  We  are  not 
discussing  questions  of  dogma  or  the  rival  claims  of 
Churches  here;  we  are  merely  pointing  out  that  to  a  man 
with  Newman's  idea  of  a  church,  the  Church  of  England 
could  not  long  afford  a  home.  That  very  logical  tendency, 
which  in  the  mind  of  Newman,  as  of  that  of  Pascal,  con- 
tended for  supremacy  with  the  tendency  to  devotion  and 
mysticism,  only  impelled  him  more  rigorously  on  his  way. 
He  could  not  put  up  with  compromises  and  convince  him- 
self that  he  ought  to  be  convinced.     He  dragged  every 


i66  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

compromise  and  every  doctrine  into  the  light,  and  insisted 
on  knowing  exactly  what  it  amounted  to  and  what  it  meant 
to  say.  The  doctrines  and  compromises  of  his  own  Church 
did  not  satisfy  him.  There  are  minds  which,  in  this  con- 
dition of  bewilderment,  might  have  been  content  to  find 
"  no  footing  so  solid  as  doubt. "  Newman  had  not  a  mind 
of  that  class.  He  could  not  believe  in  a  world  without  a 
church,  or  a  church  without  what  he  held  to  be  inspiration; 
and  accordingly  he  threw  his  whole  soul,  energy,  genius, 
and  fame  into  the  cause  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

This,  however,  did  not  come  all  at  once.  "We  are 
anticipating  by  a  few  years  the  passing  over  of  Dr.  New-, 
man,  Cardinal  Manning,  and  others  to  the  ancient  Church. 
It  is  clear  that  Newman  was  not  himself  conscious  for  a 
long  time  of  the  manner  in  which  he  was  being  drawn, 
surely  although  not  quickly,  in  the  direction  of  Rome. 
He  used  to  be  accused  at  one  time  of  having  remained  a 
conscious  Roman  Catholic  in  the  English  Church,  laboring 
to  make  new  converts.  Apart  from  his  own  calm  assur- 
ances, and  from  the  singularly  pure  and  candid  nature  of 
the  man,  there  are  reasons  enough  to  render  such  a  charge 
absurd.  Indeed,  that  simple  and  childish  conception  of 
human  nature  which  assumes  that  a  man  must  always  see 
the  logical  consequences  of  certain  admissions  or  inquiries 
beforehand,  because  all  men  can  see  them  afterward,  is 
rather  confusing  and  out  of  place  when  we  are  considering 
such  a  crisis  of  thought  and  feeling  as  that  which  took 
place  in  Oxford,  and  such  men  as  those  who  were  princi- 
pally concerned  in  it.  For  the  present  it  is  enough  to  say 
that  the  object  of  that  movement  was  to  raise  the  Church 
of  England  from  apathy,  from  dull,  easy-going  acquies- 
cence, from  the  perfunctory  discharge  of  formal  duties, 
and  to  quicken  her  again  with  the  spirit  of  a  priesthood, 
to  arouse  her  to  the  living  work,  spiritual  and  physical, 
of  an  ecclesiastical  sovereignty.  The  impulse  overshot 
itself  in  some  cases,  and  was  misdirected  in  others.  It 
proved  a  failure,  on  the  whole,  as  to  its  definite  aims; 


Movements  in  the  Churches.  167 

and  it  sometimes  left  behind  it  only  the  ashes  of  a  barren 
symbolism.  But  in  its  source  it  was  generous,  beneficent, 
and  noble,  and  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  there  has  not  been 
throughout  the  Church  of  England,  on  the  whole,  a  higher 
spirit  at  work  since  the  famous  Oxford  movement  began. 

Still  greater  was  the  practical  importance,  at  least  in 
defined  results,  of  the  movement  which  went  on  in  Scotland 
about  the  same  time.  A  fortnight  before  the  decision  of 
the  heads  of  houses  at  Oxford  on  Dr.  Newman's  tract. 
Lord  Aberdeen  announced  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  he 
did  not  see  his  way  to  do  anything  in  particular  with  re- 
gard to  the  dissensions  in  the  Church  of  Scotland.  He 
had  tried  a  measure,  he  said,  the  year  before,  and  half  the 
Church  of  Scotland  liked  it,  and  the  other  half  denounced 
it,  and  the  Government  opposed  it;  and  he,  therefore,  had 
nothing  further  to  suggest  in  the  matter.  The  perplexity 
of  Lord  Aberdeen  only  faintly  typified  the  perplexity  of 
the  ministry.  Lord  Melbourne  was  about  the  last  man  in 
the  world  likely  to  have  any  sympathy  with  the  spirit 
which  animated  the  Scottish  Reformers,  or  any  notion  of 
how  to  get  out  of  the  difficulty  which  the  whole  question 
presented.  Differing  as  they  did  in  so  many  other 
points,  there  was  one  central  resemblance  between  the 
movement  in  the  Kirk  of  Scotland  and  that  which  was 
going  on  in  the  Church  of  England.  In  both  cases  alike 
the  effort  of  the  reforming  party  was  to  emancipate  the 
Church  from  the  control  of  the  State  in  matters  involving 
religious  doctrine  and  duty.  In  Scotland  was  soon  to  be 
presented  the  spectacle  of  a  great  secession  from  an  Estab- 
lished Church,  not  because  the  seceders  objected  to  the 
principle  of  a  Church,  but  because  they  held  that  the 
Establishment  was  not  faithful  enough  to  its  mission  as  a 
Church.  One  of  the  seceders  pithily  explained  the  posi- 
tion of  the  controversy  when  he  said  that  he  and  his  fel- 
lows were  leaving  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  not  because  she 
was  too  "churchy,"  but  because  she  was  not  "churchy" 
enough. 


1 68  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

The  case  was  briefly  this:  During  the  reign  of  Queen 
Anne  an  Act  was  passed  which  took  from  the  Church 
courts  in  Scotland  the  free  choice  as  to  the  appointment 
of  pastors,  by  subjecting  the  power  of  the  presbytery  to 
the  control  and  interference  of  the  law  courts.     Harley, 
Bolingbroke,  and  Swift,   not  one  of  whom  cared  a  rush 
about  the  supposed  sanctity  of  an  ecclesiastical  appoint- 
ment, were  the  authors  of  this  compromise,   which  was 
exactly  of  the  kind  that  sensible  men  of  the  world  every- 
where might  be  supposed  likely  to  accept  and  approve. 
In  an  immense  number  of  Scotch  parishes  the  minister 
was  nominated  by  a  lay  patron;    and  if  the   presbytery 
found  nothing  to  condemn  in  him  as  to  "  life,  literature, 
and  doctrine,"  they  were  compelled  to  appoint  him,  how- 
ever unwelcome  he  might  be  to  the  parishioners.     Now  it 
is  obvious  that  a  man  might  have  a  blameless  character, 
sound  religious  views,   and  an  excellent  education,   and 
nevertheless  be  totally  unfitted  to  undertake  the  charge 
of  a  Scottish  parish.     The  Southwark  congregation,  who 
appreciate  and  delight  in  the  ministrations  of  Mr.  Spur- 
geon,  might  very  well  be  excused  if  they  objected  to  hav- 
ing a  perfectly  moral  Charles  Honeyman,  even  though  his 
religious  opinions  were  identical  with  those  of  their  favor- 
ite, forced  upon  them  at  the  will  of  some  aristocratic  lay 
patron.     The  effect  of  the  power  conferred  on  the  law 
courts  and  the  patron  was  simply  in  a  great  number  of 
cases  to  send  families  away  from  the  Church  of  Scotland 
and  into  voluntaryism.     The  Scotch  people  are  above  all 
others  impatient  of  any   attempt  to   force  on  them  the 
services  of  unacceptable  ministers.      Men  clung  to   the 
National  Church  as  long  as  it  was  national— that  is,  as 
long  as  it  represented  and   protected    the    sacred  claims 
of  a  deeply  religious  people.     Dissent,  or  rather  voluntary- 
ism, began  to  make  a   progress  in  Scotland  that  alarmed 
thoughtful  Churchmen.      To  get  over  the  difficulty,   the 
General  Assembly,  the  highest  ecclesia.stical  court  in  Scot- 
land, and  likewise  a  sort  of  Church  Parliament,  declared 


Movements  in  the  Qmrches.  169 

that  a  veto  on  the  nomination  of  the  pastor  should  be 
exercised  by  the  conr^regation,  in  accordance  with  a  fun- 
damental law  of  the  Church  that  no  pastor  should  be  in- 
truded on  any  congregation  contrary  to  the  will  of  the 
people.  The  Veto  Act,  as  this  declaration  was  called, 
worked  well  enough  for  a  short  time,  and  the  highest  legal 
authorities  declared  it  not  incompatible  with  the  Act  of 
Queen  Anne.  But  it  diminished  far  too  seriously  the 
power  of  the  lay  patron  to  be  accepted  without  a  struggle. 
In  the  celebrated  Auchterarder  case  the  patron  won  a 
victory  over  the  Church  in  the  courts  of  law,  for  having 
presented  a  minister  whose  appointment  was  vetoed  by 
the  congregation ;  he  obtained  an  order  from  the  civil 
courts  deciding  that  the  presbytery  must  take  him  on  trial, 
in  obedience  with  the  Act  of  Queen  Anne,  as  he  was  qual- 
ified by  life,  literature  and  doctrine.  This  question,  how- 
ever, was  easil)'  settled  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Church.  They  left  to  the  patron's  nominee  his  stipend 
and  his  house,  and  took  no  further  notice  of  him.  They 
did  not  recognize  him  as  one  of  their  pastors,  but  he  might 
have,  if  he  would,  the  manse  and  the  money  which  the 
civil  courts  had  declared  to  be  his.  They  merely  appealed 
to  the  Legislature  to  do  something  which  might  make  the 
civil  law  in  harmony  with  the  principles  of  the  Church. 
A  more  serious  question,  however,  presently  arose.  This 
was  the  famous  Strathbogie  case,  which  brought  the 
authority  of  the  Church  and  that  of  the  State  into  irrecon- 
cilable conflict.  A  minister  had  been  nominated  in  the 
parish  of  Marnoch,  who  was  so  unacceptable  to  the  con- 
gregation that  261  out  of  300  heads  of  families  objected  to 
his  appointment.  The  General  Assembly  directed  the 
presbytery  of  Strathbogie,  in  which  the  parish  lay,  to  re- 
ject the  minister,  Mr.  Edwards.  The  presbytery  had  long 
been  noted  for  its  leaning  toward  the  claims  of  the  civil 
power,  and  it  very  reluctantly  obeyed  the  command  of 
the  highest  authority  and  ruling  body  of  the  Church. 
Another    minister   was    appointed    to    the   parish.       Mr. 


170  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Edwards  fought  the  question  out  in  the  civil  court  and 
obtained  an  interdict  against  the  new  appointment,  and  a 
decision  that  the  presbytery  were  bound  to  take  himself 
on  trial.  vSeven  members,  constituting  the  majority  of 
the  presbytery,  determined,  without  consulting  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  to  obey  the  civil  power,  and  they  admitted 
Mr.  Edwards  on  trial.  The  seven  were  brought  before 
the  bar  of  the  General  Assembly,  and  by  an  overwhelming 
majority  were  condemned  to  be  deposed  from  their  places 
in  the  ministry.  Their  parishes  were  declared  vacant. 
A  more  complete  antagonism  between  Church  and  State 
is  not  possible  to  imagine.  The  Church  expelled  from  its 
ministry  seven  men  for  having  obeyed  the  command  of 
the  civil  laws. 

It  was  on  the  motion  of  Dr.  Chalmers  that  the  seven 
ministers  were  deposed.  Dr.  Chalmers  became  the  leader 
of  the  movement  which  was  destined  within  two  years 
from  the  time  we  are  now  surveying  to  cause  the  disrup- 
tion of  the  ancient  Kirk  of  Scotland.  No  man  could  be 
better  fitted  for  the  task  of  leadership  in  such  a  movement. 
He  was  beyond  comparison  the  foremost  man  in  the  Scot- 
tish Church.  He  was  the  greatest  pulpit  orator  in  Scot- 
land, or,  indeed,  in  Great  Britain.  As  a  scientific  writer, 
both  on  astronomy  and  on  political  economy,  he  had  made 
a  great  mark.  From  having  been  in  his  earlier  days  the 
minister  of  an  obscure  Scottish  village  congregation,  he 
had  suddenly  sprung  into  fame.  He  was  the  lion  of  any 
city  which  he  happened  to  visit.  If  he  preached  in  Lon- 
don, the  church  was  crowded  with  the  leaders  of  politics, 
science,  and  fashion,  eager  to  hear  him.  The  effect  he  pro- 
duced in  England  is  all  the  more  surprising  seeing  that  he 
spoke  in  the  broadest  Scottish  accent  conceivable,  and,  as 
one  admirer  admits,  mispronounced  almost  every  word. 
We  have  already  quoted  what  Mr.  Gladstone  said  about 
the  style  of  Dr.  Newman;  let  us  cite  also  what  he  says 
about  Dr.  Chalmers.  "  I  have  heard,"  said  Mr.  Gladstone, 
"  Dr.  Chalmers  preach  and  lecture.     Being  a  man  of  Scotch 


Movements  in  the  Churches.  171 

blood,  I  am  very  much  attached  to  Scotland,  and  like  even 
the  Scotch  accent,  but  not  the  Scotch  accent  of  Dr.  Chal- 
mers.    Undoubtedly  the  accent  of  Dr.  Chalmers  in  preach- 
ing and  delivery  was  a  considerable  impediment  to  his 
success ;  but  notwithstanding  all  that,  it  was  overborne  by 
the  power  of  the  man  in  preaching — overborne    by  his 
power,  which  melted  into  harmony  with  all  the  adjuncts 
and  incidents  of  the  man  as  a  whole,  so  much  so,  that 
although  I  would  have  said  that  the  accent  of  Dr.  Chal- 
mers was  distasteful,  yet  in  Dr.  Chalmers  himself  I  would 
not  have  had  it  altered  in  the  smallest  degree."     Chalmers 
spoke  with  a  massive  eloquence,  in  keeping  with  his  pow- 
erful  frame  and  his  broad   brow  and   his   commanding 
presence.     His  speeches  were   a   strenuous   blending   of 
argument  and  emotion.     They  appealed  at   once  to  the 
strong  common-sense  and  to  the  deep  religious  convictions 
of  his  Scottish  audiences.     His  whole  soul  was  in  his  work 
as  a  leader  of  religious  movements.     He  cared  little  or 
nothing  for  any  popularity  or  fame  that  he  might  have 
won.     Some  strong  and  characteristic  words  of  his  own 
have  told  us  what  he  thought  of  passing  renown.      He 
called  it  " a  popularity  which    rifles  home  of  its  sweets; 
and  by  elevating  a  man  above  his  fellows  places  him  in 
a  region  of  desolation,  where  he  stands  a  conspicuous  mark 
for  the  shafts  of  malice,  envy,  and  detraction ;  a  popularity 
which,  with  its  head  among  storms  and  its  feet  on  the 
treacherous  quicksands,   has  nothing  to  lull  the  agonies 
of  its  tottering  existence  but  the  hosannas  of  a  drivelling 
generation."     There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  these  were 
Chalmers'  genuine  sentiments ;   and  scarcely  any  man  of 
his  time  had  come  into  so  sudden  and  great  an  endowment 
of  popularity.     The  reader  of  to-day  must  not  look  for 
adequate  illustration  of  the  genius  and  the  influence  of 
Chalmers  in  his  published  words.     These  do,  indeed,  show 
him  to  have  been  a  strong  reasoner  and  a  man  of  original 
mind,  but  they  do  not  show  the  Chalmers  of  Scottish  con- 
troversy ;  that  Chalmers  must  be  studied  through  the  traces, 


172  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

\y'\ng  all  around,  of  his  influence  upon  the  mind  and  the 
history  of  the  Scottish  people.  The  Free  Church  of 
Scotland  is  his  monument.  He  did  not  make  that  Church. 
It  was  not  the  work  of  one  man,  or,  strictly  speaking,  of 
one  generation.  It  grew  naturally  out  of  the  inevitable 
struggle  between  Church  and  State.  But  Chalmers  did 
more  than  any  other  man  to  decide  the  moment  and  the 
manner  of  its  coming  into  existence,  and  its  success  is  his 
best  monument. 

For  we  may  anticipate  a  little  in  this  instance,  as  in  that 
of  the  Oxford  movement,  and  mention  at  once  the  fact  that 
on  May  i8th,  1843,  some  five  hundred  ministers  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Chalmers, 
seceded  from  the  old  Kirk  and  set  about  to  form  the  Free 
Church.  The  Government  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  made 
a  weak  effort  at  compromise  by  legislative  enactment,  but 
had  declined  to  introduce  any  legislation  which  should  free 
the  Kirk  of  Scotland  from  the  control  of  the  civil  courts, 
and  there  was  no  course  for  those  who  held  the  views  of 
Dr.  Chalmers  but  to  withdraw  from  the  Church  which 
admitted  that  claim  of  State  control.  Opinions  may  differ 
as  to  the  necessity,  the  propriety  of  the  secession — as  to 
its  effects  upon  the  history  and  the  character  of  the  Scot- 
tish people  since  that  time;  but  there  can  be  no  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  in  which  the  step 
was  taken.  Five  hundred  ministers  on  that  memorable 
day  went  deliberately  forth  from  their  positions  of  comfort 
and  honor,  from  home  and  competence,  to  meet  an  uncer- 
tain and  a  perilous  future,  with  perhaps  poverty  and  fail- 
ure to  be  the  final  result  of  their  enterprise,  and  with 
misconstruction  and  misrepresentation  to  make  the  bitter 
bread  of  poverty  more  bitter  still.  In  these  pages  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  merits  of  religious  controversies; 
and  it  is  no  part  of  our  concern  to  consider  even  the  social 
and  political  effects  produced  upon  Scotland  by  this  great 
secession.  But  we  need  not  withhold  our  admiration  from 
the  men  who  risked  and  suffered  so  much  in  the  cause  of 


Movements  in  the  Churches.     ^  173 

what  they  believed  to  be  their  Church's  true  rights;  and 
we  are  bound  to  give  this  admiration  as  cordially  to  the 
poor  and  nameless  ministers,  the  men  of  the  rank  and  file, 
about  whose  doings  history  so  little  concerns  herself,  as 
to  the  leaders  like  Chalmers,  who,  whether  they  sought 
it  or  not,  found  fame  shining  on  their  path  of  self-sacrifice. 
The  history  of  Scotland  is  illustrated  by  many  great 
national  deeds.  No  deed  it  tells  of  surpasses  in  dignity 
and  in  moral  grandeur  that  secession — to  cite  the  words  of 
the  protest — "  from  an  Establishment  which  we  loved  and 
prized,  through  interference  with  conscience,  the  dishonor 
done  to  Christ's  crown,  and  the  rejection  of  his  sole  and 
supreme  authority  as  King  in  his  Church." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE    DISASTERS    OF    CABUL. 

The  earliest  days  of  the  Peel  Ministry  fell  upon  trouble, 
not  indeed  at  home,  but  abroad.  At  home  the  prospect 
still  seemed  bright.  The  birth  of  the  Queen's  eldest  son 
was  an  event  welcomed  by  national  congratulation.  There 
was  still  great  distress  in  the  agricultural  districts;  but 
there  was  a  general  confidence  that  the  financial  genius  of 
Peel  would  quickly  find  some  way  to  make  burdens  light, 
and  that  the  condition  of  things  all  over  the  country  would 
begin  to  mend.  It  was  a  region  far  removed  from  the 
knowledge  and  the  thoughts  of  most  Englishmen  that 
supplied  the  news  now  beginning  to  come  into  England 
day  after  day,  and  to  thrill  the  country  with  the  tale  of 
one  of  the  greatest  disasters  to  English  policy  and  English 
arms  to  be  found  in  all  the  record  of  our  dealings  with  the 
East.  There  are  many  still  living  who  can  recall  with  an 
impression  as  keen  as  though  it  belonged  to  yesterday  the 
first  accounts  that  reached  this  country  of  the  surrender 
at  Cabul,  and  the  gradual  extinction  of  the  army  that  tried 
to  make  its  retreat  through  the  terrible  Pass. 

This  grim  chapter  of  history  had  been  for  some  time  in 
preparation.  It  may  be  said  to  open  with  the  reign  itself. 
News  travelled  slowly  then ;  and  it  was  quite  in  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  things  that  some  part  of  the  empire  might 
be  torn  with  convulsion  for  months  before  London  knew 
that  the  even  and  ordinary  condition  of  things  had  been 
disturbed.  In  this  instance  the  rejoicings  at  the  accession 
of  the  young  Queen  were  still  going  on  when  a  series  of 
events  had  begun  in  Central  Asia,  destined  to  excite  the 
profoundest  emotion  in  England,  and  to  exercise  the  most 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  175 

powerful  influence  upon  our  foreign  policy  down  to  the 
present  hour.  On  September  20th,  1837,  Captain  Alex- 
ander Burnes  arrived  at  Cabul,  the  capital  of  the  State  of 
Cabul,  in  the  north  of  Afghanistan,  and  the  ancient  capi- 
tal of  the  Emperor  Baber,  whose  tomb  is  on  a  hill  outside 
the  city.  Burnes  was  a  famous  Orientalist  and  traveller, 
the  Burton  or  Burnaby  of  his  day ;  he  had  conducted  an 
expedition  into  Central  Asia;  had  published  his  travels 
in  Bokhara,  and  had  been  sent  on  a  mission  by  the  Indian 
Government,  in  whose  service  he  was,  to  study  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Indus.  He  was,  it  may  be  remarked,  a 
member  of  the  family  of  Robert  Burns,  the  poet  himself 
having  changed  the  original  spelling  of  the  name  which 
all  the  other  members  of  the  family  retained.  The  object 
of  the  journey  of  Captain  Burnes  to  Cabul  in  1837  was,  in 
the  first  instance,  to  enter  into  commercial  relations  with 
Dost  Mahomed,  then  ruler  of  Cabul,  and  with  other  chiefs 
of  the  western  regions.  But  events  soon  changed  his  busi- 
ness from  a  commercial  into  a  political  and  diplomatic 
mission ;  and  his  tragic  fate  would  make  his  journey  mem- 
orable to  Englishmen  forever,  even  if  other  events  had  not 
grown  out  of  it  which  give  it  a  place  of  more  than  personal 
importance  in  history. 

The  great  region  of  Afghanistan,  with  its  historical  boun- 
daries as  varying  and  difficult  to  fix  at  certain  times  as 
those  of  the  old  Dukedom  of  Burgundy,  has  been  called 
the  land  of  transition  between  Eastern  and  Western  Asia. 
All  the  great  ways  that  lead  from  Persia  to  India  pass 
through  that  region.  There  is  a  proverb  which  declares 
that  no  one  can  be  king  of  Hindostan  without  first  becom- 
ing lord  of  Cabul.  The  Afghans  are  the  ruling  nation, 
but  among  them  had  long  been  settled  Hindoos,  Arabs, 
Armenians,  Abyssinians,  and  men  of  other  races  and  relig- 
ions. The  Afghans  are  Mohammedans  of  the  Shunite 
sect,  but  they  allowed  Hindoos,  Christians,  and  even  the 
Persians,  who  are  of  the  hated  dissenting  sect  of  the 
Shiites,  to  live  among  them,  and  even  to  rise  to  high  posi- 


i']6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

tion  and  influence.  The  founder  of  the  Afghan  Empire, 
Ahmed  Shah,  died  in  1773.  He  had  made  an  empire 
which  stretched  from  Herat  on  the  west  to  Sirhind  on  the 
east,  and  from  the  Oxus  and  Cashmere  on  the  north  to  the 
Arabian  Sea  and  the  mouths  of  the  Indus  on  the  south. 
The  death  of  his  son,  Timur  Shah,  delivered  the  kingdom 
up  to  the  hostile  factions,  intrigues,  and  quarrels  of  his 
sons:  the  leaders  of  a  powerful  tribe,  the  Barukzyes,  took 
advantage  of  the  events  that  arose  out  of  this  condition  of 
things  to  dethrone  the  descendants  of  Ahmed  Shah.  When 
Captain  Burnes  visited  Afghanistan  in  1832,  the  only 
part  of  all  their  great  inheritance  which  yet  remained  with 
the  descendants  of  Ahmed  Shah  was  the  principality  of 
Herat.  The  remainder  of  Afghanistan  was  parcelled  out 
between  Dost  Mahomed  and  his  brothers.  Dost  Mahomed 
was  a  man  of  extraordinary  ability  and  energy.  He  would 
probably  have  made  a  name  as  a  soldier  and  a  statesman 
anywhere.  He  had  led  a  stormy  youth,  but  had  put  away 
with  maturity  and  responsibility  the  vices  and  follies  of  his 
earlier  years.  There  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that,  although 
he  was  a  usurper,  he  was  a  sincere  lover  of  his  country, 
and  on  the  whole  a  wise  and  just  ruler.  When  Captain 
Burnes  visited  Dost  Mahomed,  he  was  received  with  every 
mark  of  friendship  and  favor.  Dost  Mahomed  professed 
to  be,  and  no  doubt  at  one  time  was,  a  sincere  friend  of 
the  English  Government  and  people.  There  was,  how- 
ever, at  that  time  a  quarrel  going  on  between  the  Shah  of 
Persia  and  the  Prince  of  Herat,  the  last  enthroned  repre- 
sentative, as  has  been  already  said,  of  the  great  family  on 
whose  fall  Dost  Mahomed  and  his  brothers  had  mounted 
into  power.  So  far  as  can  now  be  judged,  there  does  seem 
to  have  been  serious  and  genuine  ground  of  complaint  on 
the  part  of  Persia  against  the  ruler  of  Herat.  But  it  is 
probable,  too,  that  the  Persian  Shah  had  been  seeking  for, 
and  in  any  case  would  have  found,  a  pretext  for  making 
war;  and  the  strong  impression  at  the  time  in  England, 
and  among  the  authorities  in  India,  was  that  Persia  her- 


The  Disasters  of  Calml.  177 

self  was  but  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  Russia.  A  glance 
at  the  map  will  show  the  meaning-  of  this  suspicion  and 
the  reasons  which  at  once  gave  it  plausibility,  and  would 
have  rendered  it  of  grave  importance.  If  Persia  were 
merely  the  instrument  of  Russia,  and  if  the  troops  of  the 
Shah  were  only  the  advance-guard  of  the  Czar,  then,  un- 
doubtedly, the  attack  on  Herat  might  have  been  regarded 
as  the  first  step  of  a  great  movement  of  Russia  toward  our 
Indian  dominion. 

There  were  other  reasons,  too,  to  give  this  suspicion 
some  plausibility.  Mysterious  agents  of  Russia,  officers 
in  her  service  and  others,  began  to  show  themselves  in 
Central  Asia  at  the  time  of  Captain  Burnes'  visit  to  Dost 
Mahomed.  Undoubtedly  Russia  did  set  herself  for  some 
reason  to  win  the  friendship  and  alliance  of  Dost  Mahomed ; 
and  Captain  Burnes  was  for  his  part  engaged  in  the  same 
endeavor.  All  considerations  of  a  merely  commercial 
nature  had  long  since  been  put  away,  and  Burnes  was 
freely  and  earnestly  negotiating  with  Dost  Mahomed  for 
his  alliance.  Burnes  always  insisted  that  Dost  Mahomed 
himself  was  sincerely  anxious  to  become  an  ally  of  Eng- 
land, and  that  he  offered  more  than  once,  on  his  own  free 
part,  to  dismiss  the  Russian  agents  even  without  seeing 
them,  if  Burnes  desired  him  to  do  so.  But  for  some  rea- 
son Burnes'  superiors  did  not  share  his  confidence.  In 
Downing  Street  and  in  Simla  the  profoundest  distrust  of 
Dost  Mahomed  prevailed.  It  was  again  and  again  im- 
pressed on  Burnes  that  he  must  regard  Dost  Mahomed  as 
a  treacherous  enemy,  and  as  a  man  playing  the  part  of 
Persia  and  of  Russia.  It  is  impossible  now  to  estimate 
fairly  all  the  reasons  which  may  have  justified  the  English 
and  the  Indian  Governments  in  this  conviction.  But  we 
know  that  nothing  in  the  policy  afterward  followed  out  by 
the  Indian  authorities  exhibited  any  of  the  judgment  and 
wisdom  that  would  warrant  us  in  taking  anything  for 
granted  on  the  mere  faith  of  their  dictum.  The  story  of  four 
years — almost  to  a  day  the  extent  of  this  sad  chapter  of  Eng- 
V.  Vol.  I, — 12 


178  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

lish  history — will  be  a  tale  of  such  misfortune,  blunder,  and 
humiliation  as  the  annals  of  England  do  not  anywhere  else 
present.  Blunders  which  were,  indeed,  worse  than  crimes, 
and  a  principle  of  action  which  it  is  a  crime  in  any  rulers 
to  sanction,  brought  things  to  such  a  pass  with  us  that  in 
a  few  years  from  the  accession  of  the  Queen  we  had  in 
Afghanistan  soldiers  who  were  positively  afraid  to  fight 
the  enemy,  and  some  English  officials  who  were  not 
ashamed  to  treat  for  the  removal  of  our  most  formidable 
foes  by  purchased  assassination.  It  is  a  good  thing  for  us 
all  to  read  in  cold  blood  this  chapter  of  our  history.  It 
will  teach  us  how  vain  is  a  policy  founded  on  evil  and 
ignoble  principles ;  how  vain  is  the  strength  and  courage 
of  men  when  they  have  not  leaders  fit  to  command.  It 
may  teach  us,  also,  not  to  be  too  severe  in  our  criticism  of 
other  nations.  The  failure  of  the  French  invasion  of  Mex- 
ico under  the  Second  Empire  seems  like  glory  when  com- 
pared with  the  failure  of  our  attempt  to  impose  a  hated 
sovereign  on  the  Afghan  people. 

Captain  Burnes  then  was  placed  in  the  painful  difficulty 
of  having  to  carry  out  a  policy  of  which  he  entirely  disap- 
proved. He  believed  in  Dost  Mahomed  as  a  friend,  and 
he  was  ordered  to  regard  him  as  an  enemy.  It  would  have 
been  better  for  the  career  and  for  the  reputation  of  Burnes 
if  he  had  simply  declined  to  have  anything  to  do  with  a 
course  of  action  which  seemed  to  him  at  once  unjust  and 
unwise.  But  Burnes  was  a  young  man,  full  of  youth's  en- 
ergy and  ambition.  He  thought  he  saw  a  career  of  dis- 
tinction opening  before  him,  and  he  was  unwilling  to  close 
it  abruptly  by  setting  himself  in  obstinate  opposition  to  his 
superiors.  He  was,  besides,  of  a  quick  mercurial  temper- 
ament, over  which  mood  followed  mood  in  rapid  succession 
of  change.  A  slight  contradiction  sometimes  threw  him 
into  momentary  despondency ;  a  gleam  of  hope  elated  him 
into  the  assurance  that  all  was  won.  It  is  probable  that 
after  awhile  he  may  have  persuaded  himself  to  acquiesce 
in  the  judgment  of  his  chiefs.     On  the  other  hand,  Dost 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  179 

Mahomed  was  placed  in  a  position  of  great  difficulty  and 
danger.  He  had  to  choose.  He  could  not  remain  abso- 
lutely independent  of  all  the  disputants.  If  England 
would  not  support  him,  he  must  for  his  own  safety  find 
alliances  elsewhere — in  Russian  statecraft,  for  example. 
He  told  Burnes  of  this  again  and  again,  and  Burnes  en- 
deavored, without  the  slightest  success,  to  impress  his  su- 
periors with  his  own  views  as  to  the  reasonableness  of  Dost 
Mahomed's  arguments.  Runjeet  Singh,  the  daring  and 
successful  adventurer  who  had  annexed  the  whole  province 
of  Cashmere  to  his  dominions,  was  the  enemy  of  Dost  Ma- 
homed and  the  faithful  ally  of  England.  Dost  Mahomed 
thought  the  British  Government  could  assist  him  in  com- 
ing to  terms  with  Runjeet  Singh,  and  Burnes  had  assured 
him  that  the  British  Government  would  do  all  it  could  to 
establish  satisfactory  terms  of  peace  between  Afghanistan 
and  the  Punjaub,  over  which  Runjeet  Singh  ruled.  Burnes 
wrote  from  Cabul  to  say  that  Russia  had  made  substantial 
offers  to  Dost  Mahomed;  Persia  had  been  lavish  in  her 
biddings  for  his  alliance;  Bokhara  and  other  states  had 
not  been  backward;  "  yet  in  all  that  has  passed,  or  is  daily 
transpiring,  the  chief  of  Cabul  declares  that  he  prefers  the 
sympathy  and  friendly  offices  of  the  British  to  all  these 
offers,  however  alluring  they  may  seem,  from  Persia  or 
from  the  Emperor ;  which  places  his  good  sense  in  a  light 
more  than  prominent,  and  in  my  humble  judgment  proves 
that  by  an  earlier  attention  to  these  countries  we  might 
have  escaped  the  whole  of  these  intrigues  and  held  long 
since  a  stable  influence  in  Cabul."  Burnes,  however,  was 
unable  to  impress  his  superiors  with  any  belief  either  in 
Dost  Mahomed  or  in  the  policy  which  he  himself  advo- 
cated, and  the  result  was  that  Lord  Auckland,  the  Gover- 
nor-general of  India,  at  length  resolved  to  treat  Dost  Ma- 
homed as  an  enemy,  and  to  drive  him  from  Cabul.  Lord 
Auckland,  therefore,  entered  into  a  treaty  with  Runjeet 
Singh  and  Shah  Soojah-ool-Moolk,  the  exiled  representa- 
tive of  what  we  may  call  the  legitimist  rulers  of  Afghani- 


i8o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Stan,  for  the  restoration  of  the  latter  to  the  throne  of  his 
ancestors,  and  for  the  destruction  of  the  power  of  Dost 
Mahomed. 

It  ought  to  be  a  waste  of  time  to  enter  into  any  argu- 
ment in  condemnation  of  such  a  policy  in  our  days.  Even 
if  its  results  had  not  proved  in  this  particular  instance  its 
most  striking  and  exemplary  condemnation,  it  is  so  grossly 
and  flagrantly  opposed  to  all  the  principles  of  our  more 
modern  statesmanship  that  no  one  among  us  ought  now  to 
need  a  warning  against  it.  Dost  Mahomed  was  the  ac- 
cepted, popular,  and  successful  ruler  of  Cabul.  No  matter 
what  our  quarrel  with  him,  we  had  not  the  slightest  right 
to  make  it  an  excuse  for  forcing  on  his  people  a  ruler 
whom  they  had  proved  before,  as  they  were  soon  to  prove 
again,  that  they  thoroughly  detested.  Perhaps  the  nearest 
parallel  to  our  policy  in  this  instance  is  to  be  found  in  the 
French  invasion  of  Mexico,  and  the  disastrous  attempt  to 
impose  a  foreign  ruler  on  the  Mexican  people.  Each  ex- 
periment ended  in  utter  failure,  and  in  the  miserable  death 
of  the  unfortunate  puppet  prince  who  was  put  forward  as 
the  figure-head  of  the  enterprise.  But  the  French  Emperor 
could  at  least  have  pleaded  in  his  defence  that  Maximilian 
of  Austria  had  not  already  been  tried  and  rejected  by  the 
Mexican  people.  0\xx prott^ge  had  been  tried  and  rejected. 
The  French  Emperor  might  have  pleaded  that  he  had  ac- 
tual and  substantial  wrongs  to  avenge.  We  had  only  prob- 
lematical and  possible  dangers  to  guard  against.  In  any 
case,  as  has  been  already  said,  the  calamities  entailed  on 
French  arms  and  counsels  by  the  Mexican  intervention 
read  like  a  page  of  brilliant  success  when  compared  with 
the  immediate  result  of  our  enterprise  in  Cabul.  Before 
passing  away  from  this  part  of  the  subject,  it  is  necessary 
to  mention  the  fact  that  among  its  many  unfortunate  in- 
cidents the  campaign  led  to  some  peculiarly  humiliating 
debates  and  some  lamentable  accusations  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Years  after  Burnes  had  been  flung  into  his 
bloody  grave,  it  was  found  that  the  English  Government 


The  Disasters  of  Cabtil.  i8i 

had  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons  his  despatches  in 
so  mutilated  and  altered  a  form  that  Burnes  was  made  to 
seem  as  if  he  actually  approved  and  recommended  the 
policy  which  he  especially  warned  us  to  avoid.  It  is  pain- 
ful to  have  to  record  such  a  fact,  but  it  is  indispensable 
that  it  should  be  recorded.  It  would  be  vain  to  attempt 
to  explain  how  the  principles  and  the  honor  of  English 
statesmanship  fell,  for  the  hour,  under  the  demoralizing  in- 
fluence which  allowed  such  things  to  be  thought  legiti- 
mate. An  Oriental  atmosphere  seemed  to  have  gathered 
around  our  official  leaders.  In  Afghanistan  they  were  en- 
tering into  secret  and  treacherous  treaties;  in  England 
they  were  garbling  despatches.  When,  years  after.  Lord 
Palmerston  was  called  upon  to  defend  the  policy  which 
had  thus  dealt  with  the  despatches  of  Alexander  Burnes, 
he  did  not  say  that  the  documents  were  not  garbled.  He 
only  contended  that,  as  the  Government  had  determined 
not  to  act  on  the  advice  of  Burnes,  they  were  in  no  wise 
bound  to  publish  those  passages  of  his  despatches  in  which 
he  set  forth  assumptions  which  they  believed  to  be  un- 
founded, and  advised  a  policy  which  they  looked  upon  as 
mistaken.  vSuch  a  defence  is  only  to  be  read  with  wonder 
and  pain.  The  Government  were  not  accused  of  sup- 
pressing passages  which  they  believed,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
to  be  worthless.  The  accusation  was  that,  by  suppressing 
passages  and  sentences  here  and  there,  Burnes  was  made 
to  appear  as  if  he  were  actually  recommending  the  polic}^ 
against  which  he  was  at  the  time  most  earnestly  protest- 
ing. Burnes  was  himself  the  first  victim  of  the  policy 
which  he  strove  against,  and  which  all  England  has  since 
condemned.  No  severer  word  is  needed  to  condemn  the 
mutilation  of  his  despatches  than  to  say  that  he  was  actu- 
ally made  to  stand  before  the  country  as  responsible  for 
having  recommended  that  very  policy.  "  It  should  never 
be  forgotten,"  says  Sir  J.  W.  Kaye,  the  historian  of  the 
Afghan  War,  "  by  those  who  would  form  a  correct  estimate 
of  the  character  and   career  of  Alexander  Burnes,  that 


i82  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

both  had  been  misrepresented  in  those  collections  of  State 
papers  which  are  supposed  to  furnish  the  best  materials  of 
history,  but  which  are  often  in  reality  only  one-sided  com- 
pilations of  garbled  documents — counterfeits,  which  the 
ministerial  stamp  forces  into  currency,  defrauding  a  pres- 
ent generation,  and  handing  down  to  posterity  a  chain  of 
dangerous  lies." 

Meanwhile  the  Persian  attack  on  Herat  had  practically 
failed,  owing  mainly  to  the  skill  and  spirit  of  a  young 
English  officer,  Eldred  Pottinger,  who  was  assisting  the 
prince  in  his  resistance  to  the  troops  of  the  Persian  Shah. 
Lord  Auckland,  however,  ordered  the  assemblage  of  a 
British  force  for  service  across  the  Indus,  and  issued  a  fa- 
mous manifesto,  dated  from  Simla,  October  ist,  1838,  in 
which  he  set  forth  the  motives  of  his  policy.  The  Gov- 
ernor-general stated  that  Dost  Mahomed  had  made  a  sud- 
den and  unprovoked  attack  upon  our  ancient  ally,  Run- 
jeet  Singh,  and  that  when  the  Persian  army  was  besieging 
Plerat,  Dost  Mahomed  was  giving  undisguised  support  to 
the  designs  of  Persia.  The  chiefs  of  Candahar,  the 
brothers  of  Dost  Mahomed,  had  also.  Lord  Auckland  de- 
clared, given  in  their  adherence  to  the  plan  of  Persia. 
Great  Britain  regarded  the  advance  of  Persian  arms  in 
Afghanistan  as  an  act  of  hostility  toward  herself.  The 
Governor-general  had,  therefore,  resolved  to  support  the 
claims  of  the  Shah  Soojah-ool-Moolk,  whose  dominions 
had  been  usurped  by  the  existing  rulers  of  Cabul,  and 
who  had  found  an  honorable  asylum  in  British  territory; 
and  "whose  popularity  throughout  Afghanistan" — Lord 
Auckland  wrote  in  words  that  must  afterward  have  read 
like  the  keenest  and  cruelest  satire  upon  his  policy — • 
"  had  been  proved  to  his  Lordship  by  the  strong  and  unani- 
mous testimony  of  the  best  authorities."  This  popular 
sovereign,  this  favorite  of  his  people,  was  at  the  time  liv- 
ing in  exile,  without  the  faintest  hope  of  ever  again  be- 
ing restored  to  his  dominions.  We  pulled  the  poor  man 
out  of  his  obscurity,  told  him  that  his  people  were  yearning 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  i8j 

for  him,  and  that  we  would  set  him  on  his  throne  on..,/ 
more.  We  entered  for  the  purpose  into  the  tripartite 
treaty  already  mentioned.  Mr.  (afterward  Sir  W.  H.) 
Macnaghten,  Secretary  to  the  Government  of  India,  was 
appointed  to  be  envoy  and  minister  at  the  court  of  Shah 
Soojah;  and  Sir  Alexander  Burnes  (who  had  been  recalled 
from  the  court  of  Dost  Mahomed,  and  rewarded  with  a 
title  for  giving  the  advice  which  his  superiors  thought  ab- 
surd) was  deputed  to  act  under  his  direction.  It  is  onl)- 
right  to  say  that  the  policy  of  Lord  Auckland  had  the  en- 
tire approval  of  the  British  Government.  It  vas  after- 
ward stated  in  Parliament  on  the  part  of  the  m-'  istry  that 
a  despatch  recommendng  to  Lord  Auckland  e  ictly  such 
a  course  as  he  pursued  crossed  on  the  way  hV  despatch 
announcing  to  the  Government  at  home  that  he  h>^l  already 
imdertaken  the  enterprise. 

We  conquered  Dost  Mahomed  and  dethroned  him.  He 
made  a  bold  and  brilliant,  sometimes  even  a  splendid  re- 
sistance. We  took  Ghuznee  by  blowing  up  one  of  its  gates 
with  bags  of  powder,  and  thus  admitting  tl  ;  rush  of  a 
storming-party.  It  was  defended  by  one  of  the  sons  of 
Dost  Mahomed,  who  became  our  prisoner.  We  took 
Jellalabad,  which  was  defended  by  Akbar  Khan,  another 
of  Dost  Mahomed's  sons,  whose  name  came  afterward  to 
have  a  hateful  sound  in  all  English  ears.  As  we  ap- 
proached Cabul,  Dost  Mahomed  abandoned  his  capital  and 
fled  with  a  few  horsemen  across  the  Indus.  Shah  Soojah 
entered  Cabul  accompanied  by  the  British  officers.  It  was 
to  have  been  a  triumphal  entry.  The  hearts  of  those  who 
believed  in  his  cause  must  have  sunk  within  them  when 
they  saw  how  the  Shah  was  received  by  the  people  who. 
Lord  Auckland  was  assured,  were  so  devoted  to  him.  The 
city  received  him  in  sullen  silence.  Few  of  its  people  con- 
descended even  to  turn  out  to  see  him  as  he  passed.  The 
vast  majority  stayed  away,  and  disdained  even  to  look  at 
him.  One  would  have  thought  that  the  least  observant 
eye  must  have  seen  that  his  throne  could  not  last  a  moment 


1 84  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

longer  than  the  time  during  which  the  strength  of  Britain 
was  willing  to  support  it.  The  British  army,  however, 
withdrew,  leaving  only  a  contingent  of  some  eight  thou- 
sand men,  besides  the  Shah's  own  hirelings,  to  maintain 
him  for  the  present.  Sir  W.  Macnaghten  seems  to  have 
really  believed  that  the  work  was  done,  and  that  Shah 
vSoojah  was  as  safe  on  his  throne  as  Queen  Victoria.  He 
was  destined  to  be  very  soon  and  very  cruelly  undeceived. 
Dost  Mahomed  made  more  than  one  effort  to  regain  his 
place.  He  invaded  Shah  Soojah's  dominions,  and  met  the 
combined  forces  of  the  Shah  and  their  English  ally  in 
more  than  one  battle.  On  November  2d,  1840,  he  won 
the  admiration  of  the  English  themselves  by  the  brilliant 
stand  he  made  against  them.  With  his  Afghan  horse  he 
drove  our  cavalry  before  him,  and  forced  them  to  seek  the 
shelter  of  the  British  guns.  The  native  troopers  would 
not  stand  against  him ;  they  fled,  and  left  their  English 
officers,  who  vainly  tried  to  rally  them.  In  this  battle  of 
Purwandurrah  victory  might  not  unreasonably  have  been 
claimed  for  Dost  Mahomed.  He  won  at  least  his  part  of 
the  battle.  No  tongues  have  praised  him  louder  than  those 
of  English  historians.  But  Dost  Mahomed  had  the  wis- 
dom of  a  statesman  as  well  as  the  genius  of  a  soldier.  He 
knew  well  that  he  could  not  hold  out  against  the  strength 
of  England.  A  savage  or  semi-barbarous  chieftain  is 
easily  puffed  up  by  a  seeming  triumph  over  a  great  Power, 
and  is  led  to  his  destruction  by  the  vain  hope  that  he  can 
hold  out  against  it  to  the  last.  Dost  Mahomed  had  no 
such  ignorant  and  idle  notion.  Perhaps  he  knew  well 
enough,  too,  that  time  was  wholly  on  his  side ;  that  he  had 
only  to  wait  and  see  the  sovereignty  of  Shah  Soojah  tum- 
ble into  pieces.  The  evening  after  his  brilliant  exploit 
in  the  field  Dost  Mahomed  rode  quietly  to  the  quarters  of 
Sir  W.  Macnaghten,  met  the  envoy,  who  was  returning 
from  an  evening  ride,  and  to  Macnaghten's  utter  amaze- 
ment announced  himself  as  Dost  Mahomed,  tendered  to  the 
envoy  the  sword  that  had  flashed  so  splendidly  across  the 


The  Disasters  of  Cahil.  185 

field  of  the  previous  day's  fight,  and  surrendered  himself 
a  prisoner.  His  sword  was  returned ;  he  was  treated  with 
all  honor;  and  a  few  days  afterward  he  was  sent  to  India, 
where  a  residence  and  a  revenue  were  assigned  to  him. 

But  the  withdrawal  of  Dost  Mahomed  from  the  scene 
did  nothing  to  secure  the  reign  of  the  unfortunate  vShah 
Soojah.  The  Shah  was  hated  on  his  own  account.  He 
was  regarded  as  a  traitor  who  had  sold  his  country  to  the 
foreigners.  Insurrections  began  to  be  chronic.  They 
were  going  on  in  the  very  midst  of  Cabul  itself.  Sir  W. 
Macnaghten  was  warned  of  danger,  but  seemed  to  take  no 
heed.  Some  fatal  blindness  appears  to  have  suddenly 
fallen  on  the  eyes  of  our  people  in  Cabul.  On  November 
2d,  1 84 1,  an  insurrection  broke  out.  Sir  Alexander  Burnes 
lived  in  the  city  itself ;  Sir  W.  Macnaghten  and  the  military 
commander,  Major-general  Elphinstone,  were  in  canton- 
ments at  some  little  distance.  The  insurrection  might 
have  been  put  down  in  the  first  instance  with  hardly  the 
need  even  of  Napoleon's  famous  "whiff  of  grape-shot." 
But  it  was  allowed  to  grow  up  without  attempt  at  control. 
Sir  Alexander  Burnes  could  not  be  got  to  believe  that  it 
was  anything  serious,  even  when  a  fanatical  and  furious 
mob  were  besieging  his  own  house.  The  fanatics  were 
especially  bitter  against  Burnes,  because  they  believed 
that  he  had  been  guilty  of  treachery.  They  accused  him 
of  having  pretended  to  be  the  friend  of  Dost  Mahomed, 
deceived  him,  and  brought  the  English  into  the  country. 
How  entirely  innocent  of  this  charge  Burnes  was  we  all 
now  know ;  but  it  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  there  was 
much  in  the  external  aspect  of  events  to  excuse  such  a  sus- 
picion in  the  mind  of  an  infuriated  Afghan.  To  the  last 
Burnes  refused  to  believe  that  he  was  in  danger.  He  had 
always  been  a  friend  to  the  Afghans,  he  said,  and  he  could 
have  nothing  to  fear.  It  was  true.  He  had  always  been 
the  sincere  friend  of  the  Afghans.  It  was  his  misfortune, 
and  the  heavy  fault  of  his  superiors,  that  he  had  been  made 
to  appear  as  an  enemy  of  the  Afghans.     He  had  now  to 


i86  A  History  of  Our  Oivn  Times. 

pay  a  heavy  penalty  for  the  errors  and  the  wrong- doing  of 
others.  He  harangued  the  raging  mob,  and  endeavored 
to  bring  them  to  reason.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  un- 
derstood, up  to  the  very  last  moment,  that  by  reminding 
them  that  he  was  Alexander  Burnes,  their  old  friend,  he 
was  only  giving  them  a  new  reason  for  demanding  his  life. 
He  was  murdered  in  the  tumult.  He  and  his  brother  and 
all  those  with  them  were  hacked  to  pieces  with  Afghan 
knives.  He  was  only  in  his  thirty-seventh  year  when  he 
was  murdered.  He  was  the  first  victim  of  the  policy  which 
had  resolved  to  intervene  in  the  affairs  of  Afghanistan. 
Fate  seldom  showed  with  more  strange  and  bitter  malice 
her  proverbial  irony  than  when  she  made  him  the  first 
victim  of  the  policy  adopted  in  despite  of  his  best  advice 
and  his  strongest  warnings. 

The  murder  of  Burnes  was  not  a  climax;  it  was  only  a 
beginning.  The  English  troops  were  quartered  in  canton- 
ments outside  the  city,  and  at  some  little  distance  from  it. 
These  cantonments  were,  in  any  case  of  real  difhculty, 
practically  indefensible.  The  popular  monarch,  the  dar- 
ling  of  his  people,  whom  we  had  restored  to  his  throne, 
was  in  the  Balla  Hissar,  or  citadel  of  Cabul.  From  the  mo- 
ment when  the  insurrection  broke  out  he  may  be  regarded 
as  a  prisoner  or  a  besieged  man  there.  He  was  as  utterly 
unable  to  help  our  people  as  they  were  to  help  him.  The 
whole  country  threw  itself  into  insurrection  against  him 
and  us.  The  Afghans  attacked  the  cantonments,  and  ac- 
tually compelled  the  English  to  abandon  the  forts  in  which 
all  our  commissariat  was  stored.  We  were  thus  threat- 
ened with  famine,  even  if  we  could  resist  the  enemy  in 
arms.  We  were  strangely  unfortunate  in  our  civil  and 
military  leaders.  Sir  W.  Macnaghten  was  a  man  of  high 
character  and  good  purpose,  but  he  was  weak  and  credu- 
lous. The  commander,  General  Elphinstone,  was  old,  in- 
firm, tortured  by  disease,  broken  down  both  in  mind  and 
body,  incapable  of  forming  a  purpose  of  his  own,  or  of 
holding  to  one  suggested  by  anybody  else.     His  second  in 


The  Disasters  of  Cahul.  187 

command  was  a  far  stronger  and  abler  man,  but  unhap- 
pily the  two  could  never  agree.  "  They  were  both  of 
them,"  says  Sir  J.  W.  Kaye,  "brave  men.  In  any  other 
situation,  though  the  physical  infirmities  of  the  one  and 
the  cankered  vanity,  the  dogmatical  perverseness  of  the 
other,  might  have  in  some  measure  detracted  from  their 
efficiency  as  military  commanders,  I  believe  they  would 
have  exhibited  sufficient  courage  and  constancy  to  rescue 
an  army  from  utter  destruction,  and  the  British  name  from 
indelible  reproach.  But  in  the  Cabul  cantonments  they 
were  miserably  out  of  place.  They  seem  to  have  been 
sent  there,  by  superhuman  intervention,  to  work  out  the 
utter  ruin  and  prostration  of  an  unholy  policy  by  ordinary 
means."  One  fact  must  be  mentioned  by  an  English  his- 
torian— one  which  an  English  historian  has  happily  not 
often  to  record.  It  is  certain  that  an  officer  in  our  service 
entered  into  negotiations  for  the  murder  of  the  insurgent 
chiefs,  who  were  our  worst  enemies.  It  is  more  than 
probable  that  he  believed  in  doing  so  he  was  acting  as  Sir 
W.  Macnaghten  would  have  had  him  do.  Sir  W.  Macnagh- 
ten  was  innocent  of  any  complicity  in  such  a  plot,  and 
was  incapable  of  it.  But  the  negotiations  were  opened  and 
carried  on  in  his  name. 

A  new  figure  appeared  on  the  scene,  a  dark  and  a  fierce 
apparition.  This  was  Akbar  Khan,  the  favorite  son  of 
Dost  Mahomed.  He  was  a  daring,  a  clever,  an  unscrupu- 
lous young  man.  From  the  moment  when  he  entered  Ca- 
bul he  became  the  real  leader  of  the  insurrection  against 
Shah  Soojah  and  us.  Macnaghten,  persuaded  by  the  mili- 
tary commander  that  the  position  of  things  was  hopeless, 
consented  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  Akbar  Khan. 
Before  the  arrival  of  the  latter  the  chiefs  of  the  insurrec- 
tion had  offered  us  terms  which  made  the  ears  of  our  en- 
voy tingle.  Such  terms  had  not  often  been  even  sug- 
gested to  British  soldiers  before.  They  were  simply  un- 
conditional surrender.  Macnaghten  indignantly  rejected 
them.     Everything  went  wrong  with  him,  however.     We 


1 88  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

were  beaten  again  and  again  b)'  the  Afghans.  Our  offi- 
cers never  faltered  in  their  duty ;  but  the  melancholy  truth 
has  to  be  told  that  the  men,  most  of  whom  were  Asiatics, 
at  last  began  to  lose  heart  and  would  not  fight  the  enemy. 
So  the  envoy  was  compelled  to  enter  into  terms  with  Ak- 
bar  Khan  and  the  other  chiefs.  Akbar  Khan  received  him 
at  first  with  contemptuous  insolence — as  a  haughty  con- 
queror receives  some  ignoble  and  humiliated  adversary. 
It  was  agreed  that  the  British  troops  should  quit  Afghan- 
istan at  once ;  that  Dost  Mahomed  and  his  family  should  be 
sent  back  to  Afghanistan ;  that  on  his  return  the  unfortu- 
nate Shah  Soojah  should  be  allowed  to  take  himself  off  to 
India  or  where  he  would ;  and  that  some  British  officers 
should  be  left  at  Cabul  as  hostages  for  the  fulfilment  of 
the  conditions. 

The  evacuation  did  not  take  place  at  once,  although  the 
fierce  winter  was  setting  in,  and  the  snow  was  falling 
heavily,  ominously.  Macnaghten  seems  to  have  had  still 
some  lingering  hopes  that  something  would  turn  up  to  re- 
lieve him  from  the  shame  of  quitting  the  country;  and  it 
must  be  owned  that  he  does  not  seem  to  have  had  any  in- 
tention of  carrying  out  the  terms  of  the  agreement  if  by 
any  chance  he  could  escape  from  them.  On  both  sides 
there  were  dallyings  and  delays.  At  last  Akbar  Khan 
made  a  new  and  startling  proposition  to  our  envoy.  It 
was  that  they  two  should  enter  into  a  secret  treaty,  should 
unite  their  arms  against  the  other  chiefs;  and  should  keep 
Shah  Soojah  on  the  throne  as  nominal  king,  with  Akbar 
Khan  as  his  vizier.  Macnaghten  caught  at  the  proposals. 
He  had  entered  into  terms  of  negotiation  with  the  Afghan 
chiefs  together;  he  now  consented  to  enter  into  a  secret 
treaty  with  one  of  the  chiefs  to  turn  their  joint  arms 
against  the  others.  It  would  be  idle  and  shameful  to  at- 
tempt to  defend  such  a  policy.  We  can  only  excuse  it  by 
considering  the  terrible  circumstances  of  Macnaghten's 
position,  the  manner  in  which  his  nerves  and  moral  fibre 
had  been  shaken  and  shattered    by   calamities,   and  his 


The  Disasters  of  Cahul.  189 

doubts  whether  he  could  place  any  reliance  on  the  promises 
of  the  chiefs.  He  had  apparently  sunk  into  that  condition 
of  mind  which  Macaulay  tells  us  that  Clive  adopted  so 
readily  in  his  dealings  with  Asiatics,  and  under  the  influ- 
ence of  which  men  naturally  honorable  and  high-minded 
come  to  believe  that  it  is  right  to  act  treacherously  with 
those  whom  we  believe  to  be  treacherous.  All  this  is  but 
excuse,  and  rather  poor  excuse.  When  it  has  all  been 
said  and  thought  of,  we  must  still  be  glad  to  believe  that 
there  are  not  many  Englishmen  who  would,  under  any 
circumstances,  have  consented  even  to  give  a  hearing  to 
the  proposals  of  Akbar  Khan. 

Whatever  Macnaghten's  error,  it  was  dearly  expiated. 
He  went  out  at  noon  next  day  to  confer  with  Akbar  Khan 
on  the  banks  of  the  neighboring  river.  Three  of  his  offi- 
cers were  with  him.  Akbar  Khan  was  ominousl}^  sur- 
rounded by  friends  and  retainers.  These  kept  pressing 
round  the  unfortunate  envoy.  Some  remonstrance  was 
made  by  one  of  the  English  officers,  but  Akbar  Khan  said  it 
was  of  no  consequence,  as  they  were  all  in  the  secret. 
Not  many  words  were  spoken ;  the  expected  conference 
had  hardly  begun  when  a  signal  was  given  or  an  order  issued 
by  Akbar  Khan,  and  the  envoy  and  the  officers  were  sud- 
denly seized  from  behind.  A  scene  of  wild  confusion 
followed,  in  which  hardly  anything  is  clear  and  certain  but 
the  one  most  horrible  incident.  The  envoy  struggled  with 
Akbar  Khan,  who  had  himself  seized  Macnaghten ;  Akbar 
Khan  drew  from  his  belt  one  of  a  pair  of  pistols  which 
Macnaghten  had  presented  to  him  a  short  time  before, 
and  shot  him  through  the  body.  The  fanatics  who  were 
crowding  round  hacked  the  body  to  pieces  with  their 
knives.  Of  the  three  officers  one  was  killed  on  the  spot; 
the  other  two  were  forced  to  mount  Afghan  horses  and 
carried  away  as  prisoners. 

At  first  this  horrid  deed  of  treacher)^  and  blood  shows 
like  that  to  which  Clearchus  and  his  companions,  the 
chiefs  of  the  famous  ten  thousand  Greeks,  fell  victims  at 


190  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  hands  of  Tissaphernes,  the  Persian  satrap.  But  it 
seems  certain  that  the  treachery  of  Akbar,  base  as  it  was, 
did  not  contemplate  more  than  the  seizure  of  the  envoy 
and  his  officers.  There  were  jealousies  and  disputes 
among  the  chiefs  of  the  insurrection.  One  of  them,  in 
especial,  had  got  his  mind  filled  with  the  conviction,  in- 
spired, no  doubt,  by  the  unfortunate  and  unparalleled  ne- 
gotiation already  mentioned,  that  the  envoy  had  offered  a 
price  for  his  head.  Akbar  Khan  was  accused  by  him  of 
being  a  secret  friend  of  the  envoy  and  the  English. 
Akbar  Khan's  father  was  a  captive  in  the  hands  of  the 
English,  and  it  may  have  been  thought  that  on  his  ac- 
count and  for  personal  purposes  Akbar  was  favoring  the 
envoy,  and  even  intriguing  with  him.  Akbar  offered  to 
prove  his  sincerity  by  making  the  envoy  a  captive  and 
handing  him  over  to  the  chiefs.  This  was  the  treacherous 
plot  which  he  strove  to  carry  out  by  entering  into  the  se- 
cret negotiations  with  the  easily-deluded  envoy.  On  the 
fatal  day  the  latter  resisted  and  struggled ;  Akbar  Khan 
heard  a  cry  of  alarm  that  the  English  soldiers  were  com- 
ing out  of  the  cantonments  to  rescue  the  envoy ;  and,  wild 
with  passion,  he  suddenly  drew  his  pistol  and  fired.  This 
was  the  statement  made  again  and  again  by  Akbar  Khan 
himself.  It  does  not  seem  an  improbable  explanation  for 
what  otherwise  looks  a  murder  as  stupid  and  purposeless 
as  it  was  brutal.  The  explanation  does  not  much  relieve 
the  darkness  of  Akbar  Khan's  character.  It  is  given  here 
as  history,  not  as  exculpation.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
reason  to  suppose  that  Akbar  Khan  would  have  shrunk 
from  any  treachery  or  any  cruelty  which  served  his  pur- 
pose. His  own  explanation  of  his  purpose  in  this  instance 
shows  a  degree  of  treachery  which  could  hardly  be  sur- 
passed even  in  the  East.  But  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind 
that  the  suspicion  of  perfidy  under  which  the  English  en- 
voy labored,  and  which  was  the  main  impulse  of  Akbar 
Khan's  movement,  had  evidence  enough  to  support  it  in 
the  eyes  of  suspicious  enemies;  and  that  poor  Macnaghten 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  191 

would  not  have  been  murdered  had  he  not  consented  to 
meet  Akbar  Khan  and  treat  with  him  on  a  proposition  to 
which  an  English  official  should  never  have  listened. 

A  terrible  agony  of  suspense  followed  among  the  little 
English  force  in  the  cantonments.  The  military  chiefs 
afterward  stated  that  they  did  not  know  until  the  following 
day  that  any  calamity  had  befallen  the  envoy.  But  a 
keen  suspicion  ran  through  the  cantonments  that  some  fear- 
ful deed  had  been  done.  No  step  was  taken  to  avenge  the 
death  of  Macnaghten,  even  when  it  became  known  that 
his  hacked  and  mangled  body  had  been  exhibited  in  tri- 
umph all  through  the  streets  and  bazaars  of  Cabul.  A 
paralysis  seemed  to  have  fallen  over  the  councils  of  our 
military  chiefs.  On  December  24th,  1841,  came  a  letter 
from  one  of  the  officers  seized  by  Akbar  Khan,  accompanj''. 
ing  proposals  for  a  treaty  from  the  Afghan  chiefs.  It  is 
hard  now  to  understand  how  any  English  officers  could 
have  consented  to  enter  into  terms  with  the  murderers  of 
Macnaghten  before  his  mangled  body  could  well  have 
ceased  to  bleed.  It  is  strange  that  it  did  not  occur  to  most 
of  them  that  there  was  an  alternative ;  that  they  were  not 
ordered  by  fate  to  accept  whatever  the  conquerors  chose  to 
offer.  We  can  all  see  the  difficulty  of  their  position. 
General  Elphinstone  and  his  second  in  command,  Brigadier 
Shelton,  were  convinced  that  it  would  be  equally  impossi- 
ble to  stay  where  they  were  or  to  cut  their  way  through 
the  Afghans.  But  it  might  have  occurred  to  many  that 
they  were  nevertheless  not  bound  to  treat  with  the  Af- 
ghans. They  might  have  remembered  the  famous  answer 
of  the  father  in  Corneille's  immortal  drama,  who  is  asked 
what  his  son  could  have  done  but  yield  in  the  face  of 
such  odds,  and  exclaims  in  generous  passion  that  he  could 
have  died.  One  English  officer  of  mark  did  counsel  his 
superiors  in  this  spirit.  This  was  Major  Eldred  Pottinger, 
whose  skill  and  courage  in  the  defence  of  Herat  we  have 
already  mentioned.  Pottinger  was  for  cutting  their  way 
through  all  enemies  and  difficulties  as  far  as  they  could, 


192  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

and  then  occupying  the  ground  with  their  dead  bodies. 
But  his  advice  was  hardly  taken  into  consideration.  It 
was  determined  to  treat  with  the  Afghans;  and  treating 
with  the  Afghans  now  meant  accepting  any  terms  the 
Afghans  chose  to  impose  on  their  fallen  enemies.  In  the 
negotiations  that  went  on  some  written  documents  were 
exchanged.  One  of  these,  drawn  up  by  the  English  nego- 
tiators, contains  a  short  sentence  which  we  believe  to  be  ab- 
solutely unique  in  the  history  of  British  dealings  with  armed 
enemies.  It  is  an  appeal  to  the  Afghan  conquerors  not  to 
be  too  hard  upon  the  vanquished ;  not  to  break  the  bruised 
reed.  "  In  friendship,  kindness  and  consideration  are  nec- 
essary, not  overpowering  the  weak  with  sufferings!"  In 
friendship ! — we  appealed  to  the  friendship  of  Macnaghten's 
murderers:  to  the  friendship,  in  any  case,  of  the  man 
whose  father  we  had  dethroned  and  driven  into  exile. 
Not  overpowering  the  weak  with  sufferings!  The  weak 
were  the  English !  One  might  fancy  he  was  reading  the 
plaintive  and  piteous  appeal  of  some  forlorn  and  feeble 
tribe  of  helpless  half-breeds  for  the  mercy  of  arrogant  and 
mastering  rulers.  "  Suffolk's  imperious  tongue  is  stern 
and  rough,"  says  one  in  Shakspeare's  pages,  when  he  is 
bidden  to  ask  for  consideration  at  the  hands  of  captors 
whom  he  is  no  longer  able  to  resist.  The  tongue  with 
which  the  English  force  at  Cabul  addressed  the  Afghans 
was  not  imperious  or  stern  or  rough.  It  was  bated,  mild, 
and  plaintive.  Only  the  other  day,  it  would  seem,  these 
men  had  blown  up  the  gates  of  Ghuznee,  and  rushed 
through  the  dense  smoke  and  the  falling  ruins  to  attack 
the  enemy  hand  to  hand.  Only  the  other  day  our  envoy 
had  received  in  surrender  the  bright  sword  of  Dost  Ma- 
homed. Now  the  same  men  who  had  seen  these  things 
could  only  plead  for  a  little  gentleness  of  consideration, 
and  had  no  thought  of  resistance,  and  did  not  any  longer 
seem  to  know  how  to  die. 

We  accepted  the  terms  of  treaty  offered  to  us.     Nothing 
else  could  be  done  by  men  who  were  not  prepared  to  adopt 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  19JJ 

the  advice  of  the  heroic  father  in  Corneille.  The  English 
were  at  once  to  take  themselves  ofE  out  of  Afghanistan, 
giving  up  all  their  guns  except  six,  which  they  were  al- 
lowed to  retain  for  their  necessary  defence  in  their  mourn- 
ful journey  home ;  they  were  to  leave  behind  all  the  treas- 
ure, and  to  guarantee  the  payment  of  something  additional 
for  the  safe-conduct  of  the  poor  little  army  to  Peshawur 
or  to  Jellalabad;  and  they  were  to  hand  over  six  officers 
as  hostages  for  the  due  fulfilment  of  the  conditions.  It  is 
of  course  understood  that  the  conditions  included  the  im- 
mediate release  of  Dost  Mahomed  and  his  family  and  their 
return  to  Afghanistan.  When  these  should  return,  the  six 
hostages  were  to  be  released.  Only  one  concession  had 
been  obtained  from  the  conquerors.  It  was  at  first  de- 
manded that  some  of  the  married  ladies  should  be  left  as 
hostages;  but  on  the  urgent  representations  of  the  English 
officers  this  condition  was  waived — at  least  for  the  moment. 
When  the  treaty  was  signed,  the  officers  who  had  been 
seized  when  Macnaghten  was  murdered  were  released. 

It  is  worth  mentioning  that  these  officers  were  not  badly 
treated  by  Akbar  Khan  while  they  were  in  his  power. 
On  the  contrary,  he  had  to  make  strenuous  efforts,  and 
did  make  them  in  good  faith,  to  save  them  from  being 
murdered  by  bands  of  his  fanatical  followers.  One  of  the 
officers  has  himself  described  the  almost  desperate  efforts 
which  Akbar  Khan  had  to  make  to  save  him  from  the  fury 
of  the  mob,  who  thronged  thirsting  for  the  blood  of  the 
Englishman  up  to  the  very  stirrup  of  their  young  chief. 
"  Akbar  Khan,"  says  this  officer,  "  at  length  drew  his  sword 
and  laid  about  him  right  manfully  "  in  defence  of  his  pris- 
oner. When,  however,  he  had  got  the  latter  into  a  place 
of  safety,  the  impetuous  young  Afghan  chief  could  not  re- 
strain a  sneer  at  his  captive  and  the  cause  his  captive  rep- 
resented. Turning  to  the  English  officer,  he  said  more 
than  once,  "  in  a  tone  of  triumphant  derision,"  some  words 
such  as  these :  "  So  you  are  the  man  who  came  here  to  seize 
my  country?"  It  must  be  owned  that  the  condition  of 
Vol.  I. — 13 


194  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

things  gave  bitter  meaning  to  the  taunt,  if  they  did  not 
actually  excuse  it.  At  a  later  period  of  this  melancholy 
story  it  is  told  by  Lady  Sale  that  crowds  of  the  fanatical 
Ghilzyes  were  endeavoring  to  persuade  Akbar  Khan  to 
slaughter  all  the  English,  and  that  when  he  tried  to  pacify 
them  they  said  that  when  Burnes  came  into  the  country 
they  entreated  Akbar  Khan's  father  to  have  Burnes  killed, 
or  he  would  go  back  to  Hindostan  and  on  some  future  day 
return  and  bring  an  army  with  him,  "  to  take  our  country 
from  us ;"  and  all  the  calamities  had  come  upon  them  be- 
cause Dost  Mahomed  would  not  take  their  advice.  Akbar 
Khan  either  was  or  pretended  to  be  moderate.  He  might, 
indeed,  safely  put  on  an  air  of  magnanimity.  His  enemies 
were  doomed.  It  needed  no  command  from  him  to  decree 
their  destruction. 

The  withdrawal  from  Cabul  began.  It  was  the  heart 
of  a  cruel  winter.  The  English  had  to  make  their  way 
through  the  awful  pass  of  Koord  Cabul.  This  stupendous 
gorge  runs  for  some  five  miles  between  mountain  ranges 
so  narrow,  lofty,  and  grim  that  in  the  winter  season  the 
rays  of  the  sun  can  hardly  pierce  its  darkness  even  at  the 
noontide.  Down  the  centre  dashed  a  precipitous  moun- 
tain torrent  so  fiercely  that  the  stern  frost  of  that  terrible 
time  could  not  stay  its  course.  The  snow  lay  in  masses 
on  the  ground ;  the  rocks  and  stones  that  raised  their  heads 
above  the  snow  in  the  way  of  the  unfortunate  travellers 
were  slippery  with  frost.  Soon  the  white  snow  began  to 
be  stained  and  splashed  with  blood.  Fearful  as  this  Koord 
Cabul  Pass  was,  it  was  only  a  degree  worse  than  the  road 
which  for  two  whole  days  the  English  had  to  traverse  to 
reach  it.  The  army  which  set  out  from  Cabul  numbered 
more  than  four  thousand  fighting  men — of  whom  Euro- 
peans, it  should  be  said,  formed  but  a  small  proportion — ■ 
and  some  twelve  thousand  camp  followers  of  all  kinds. 
There  were  also  many  women  and  children :  Lady  Mac- 
naghten,  widow  of  the  murdered  envoy;  Lady  Sale,  whose 
gallant  husband  was  holding  Jellalabad,  at  the  near  end 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  195 

of  the  Khyber  Pass,  toward  the  Indian  frontier;  Mrs. 
Sturt,  her  daughter,  soon  to  be  widowed  by  the  death  of 
her  young  husband;  Mrs.  Trevor  and  her  seven  children, 
and  many  other  pitiable  fugitives.  The  winter  journey 
would  have  been  cruel  and  dangerous  enough  in  time  of 
peace ;  but  this  journey  had  to  be  accomplished  in  the  midst 
of  something  far  worse  than  common  war.  At  every  step 
of  the  road,  every  opening  of  the  rocks,  the  unhappy 
crowd  of  confused  and  heterogeneous  fugitives  were  beset 
by  bands  of  savage  fanatics,  who  with  their  long  guns 
and  long  knives  were  murdering  all  they  could  reach.  It 
was  all  the  way  a  confused  constant  battle  against  a  guer- 
illa enemy  of  the  most  furious  and  merciless  temper,  who 
were  perfectly  familiar  with  the  ground,  and  could  rush 
forward  and  retire  exactly  as  suited  their  tactics.  The  Eng- 
lish soldiers,  weary,  weak,  and  crippled  by  frost,  could 
make  but  a  poor  fight  against  the  savage  Afghans.  "  It 
was  no  longer,"  says  Sir  J.  W.  Kaye,  "a  retreating  army; 
it  was  a  rabble  in  chaotic  flight."  Men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, horses,  ponies,  camels,  the  wounded,  the  dying,  the 
dead,  all  crowded  together  in  almost  inextricable  confusion 
among  the  snow  and  amidst  the  relentless  enemies.  "  The 
massacre" — to  quote  again  from  Sir  J.  W.  Kaye — "was 
fearful  in  this  Koord  Cabul  Pass.  Three  thousand  men 
are  said  to  have  fallen  under  the  fire  of  the  enemy,  or  to 
have  dropped  down  paralyzed  and  exhausted  to  be  slaugh- 
tered by  the  Afghan  knives.  And  amidst  these  fearful 
scenes  of  carnage,  through  a  shower  of  matchlock  balls, 
rode  English  ladies  on  horseback  or  in  camel-panniers, 
sometimes  vainly  endeavoring  to  keep  their  children  be- 
neath their  eyes,  and  losing  them  in  the  confusion  and  be- 
wilderment of  the  desolating  march." 

Was  it  for  this,  then,  that  our  troops  had  been  induced 
to  capitulate?  Was  this  the  safe-conduct  which  the  Afghan 
chiefs  had  promised  in  return  for  their  accepting  the  igno- 
minious conditions  imposed  on  them?  Some  of  the  chiefs 
did  exert  themselves  to  their  utmost  to  protect  the  unfor- 


196  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times,  ■ 

tunate  English.  It  is  not  certain  what  the  real  wish  of 
Akbar  Khan  may  have  been.  He  protested  that  he  had 
no  power  to  restrain  the  hordes  of  fanatical  Ghilzyes 
whose  own  immediate  chiefs  had  not  authority  enough  to 
keep  them  from  murdering  the  English  whenever  they 
got  a  chance.  The  force  of  some  few  hundred  horsemen 
whom  Akbar  Khan  had  with  him  were  utterly  incapable, 
he  declared,  of  maintaining  order  among  such  a  mass  of 
infuriated  and  lawless  savages.  Akbar  Khan  constantly 
appeared  on  the  scene  during  this  journey  of  terror.  At 
every  opening  or  break  of  the  long  straggling  flight  he 
and  his  little  band  of  followers  showed  themselves  on  the 
horizon  :  trying  still  to  protect  the  English  from  utter  ruin, 
as  he  declared;  come  to  gloat  over  their  misery,  and  to 
see  that  it  was  surely  accomplished,  some  of  the  unhappy 
English  were  ready  to  believe.  Yet  his  presence  was 
something  that  seemed  to  give  a  hope  of  protection. 
Akbar  Khan  at  length  startled  the  English  by  a  proposal 
that  the  women  and  children  who  were  with  the  army 
should  be  handed  over  to  his  custody,  to  be  conveyed  by 
him  in  safety  to  Peshawur.  There  was  nothing  better  to 
be  done.  The  only  modification  of  his  request,  or  com- 
mand, that  could  be  obtained  was  that  the  husbands  of  the 
married  ladies  should  accompany  their  wives.  With  this 
agreement  the  women  and  children  were  handed  over  to 
the  care  of  this  dreaded  enemy,  and  Lady  Macnaghten  had 
to  undergo  the  agony  of  a  personal  interview  with  the 
man  whose  own  hand  had  killed  her  husband.  Few  scenes 
in  poetry  or  romance  can  surely  be  more  thrilling  with 
emotion  than  such  a  meeting  as  this  must  have  been. 
Akbar  Khan  was  kindly  in  his  language,  and  declared  to 
the  unhappy  widow  that  he  would  give  his  right  arm  to 
undo,  if  it  were  possible,  the  deed  that  he  had  done. 

The  women  and  children  and  the  married  men  whose 
wives  were  among  this  party  were  taken  from  the  unfor- 
tunate army  and  placed  under  the  care  of  Akbar  Khan. 
As  events  turned  out,  this  proved  a  fortunate  thing  for 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  197 

them.  But  in  any  case  it  was  the  best  thing  that  could 
be  done.  Not  one  of  these  women  and  children  could 
have  lived  through  the  horrors  of  the  journey  which  lay 
before  the  remnant  of  what  had  once  been  a  British  force. 
The  march  was  resumed;  new  horrors  set  in;  new  heaps 
of  corpses  stained  the  snow ;  and  then  Akbar  Khan  pre- 
sented himself  with  a  fresh  proposition.  In  the  treaty 
made  at  Cabul  between  the  English  authorities  and  the 
Afghan  chiefs  there  was  an  article  which  stipulated  that 
"  the  English  force  at  Jellalabad  shall  march  for  Peshawur 
before  the  Cabul  army  arrives,  and  shall  not  delay  on  the 
road."  Akbar  Khan  was  especially  anxious  to  get  rid  of 
the  little  army  at  Jellalabad,  at  the  near  end  of  the  Khyber 
Pass.  He  desired  above  all  things  that  it  should  be  on 
the  march  home  to  India;  either  that  it  might  be  out  of 
his  way,  or  that  he  might  have  a  chance  of  destroying  it 
on  its  way.  It  was  in  great  measitre  as  a  security  for  its 
moving  that  he  desired  to  have  the  women  and  children 
under  his  care.  It  is  not  likely  that  he  meant  any  harm 
to  the  women  and  children;  it  must  be  remembered  that 
his  father  and  many  of  the  women  of  his  family  were  un- 
der the  control  of  the  British  Government  as  prisoners  in 
Hindostan.  But  he  fancied  that  if  he  had  the  English 
women  in  his  hands,  the  army  at  Jellalabad  could  not  re- 
fuse to  obey  the  condition  set  down  in  the  article  of  the 
treaty.  Now  that  he  had  the  women  in  his  power,  how- 
ever, he  demanded  other  guarantees,  with  openly  acknowl- 
edged purpose  of  keeping  these  latter  until  Jellalabad 
should  have  been  evacuated.  He  demanded  that  General 
Elphinstone,  the  commander,  with  his  second  in  command, 
and  also  one  other  officer,  should  hand  themselves  over  to 
him  as  hostages.  He  promised,  if  this  were  done,  to  exert 
himself  more  than  before  to  restrain  the  fanatical  tribes, 
and  also  to  provide  the  army  in  the  Koord  Cabul  Pass  with 
provisions.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  submit;  and 
the  English  general  himself  became,  with  the  women  and 
children,  a  captive  in  the  hands  of  the  inexorable  enemy. 


198  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Then  the  march  of  the  army,  without  a  general,  went 
on  again.  Soon  it  became  the  story  of  a  general  without 
an  army ;  before  very  long  there  was  neither  general  nor 
army.  It  is  idle  to  lengthen  a  tale  of  mere  horrors.  The 
straggling  remnant  of  an  army  entered  the  JugduUuk  Pass 
—a  dark,  steep,  narrow,  ascending  path  between  crags. 
The  miserable  toilers  found  that  the  fanatical,  implacable 
tribes  had  barricaded  the  pass.  All  was  over.  The  army 
of  Cabul  was  finally  extinguished  in  that  barricaded  pass. 
It  was  a  trap;  the  British  were  taken  in  it.  A  few  mere 
fugitives  escaped  from  the  scene  of  actual  slaughter,  and 
were  on  the  road  to  Jellalabad,  where  Sale  and  his  little 
army  were  holding  their  own.  When  they  were  within 
sixteen  miles  of  Jellalabad  the  number  was  reduced  to  six. 
Of  these  six,  five  were  killed  by  straggling  marauders  on 
the  way.  One  man  alone  reached  Jellalabad  to  tell  the 
tale.  Literally  one  man.  Dr.  Brydon,  came  to  Jellalabad 
out  of  a  moving  host  which  had  numbered  in  all  some  six- 
teen thousand  when  it  set  out  on  its  march.  The  curious 
eye  will  search  through  history  or  fiction  in  vain  for  any 
picture  more  thrilling  with  the  suggestions  of  an  awful 
catastrophe  than  that  of  this  solitary  survivor,  faint  and 
reeling  on  his  jaded  horse,  as  he  appeared  under  the  walls 
of  Jellalabad,  to  bear  the  tidings  of  our  Thermopylae  of 
pain  and  shame. 

This  is  the  crisis  of  the  story.  With  this,  at  least,  the 
worst  of  the  pain  and  shame  were  destined  to  end.  The 
rest  is  all,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  reaction  and  re- 
covery. Our  successes  are  common  enough ;  we  may  tell 
their  tale  briefly  in  this  instance.  The  garrison  at  Jella- 
labad had  received,  before  Dr.  Brydon 's  arrival,  an  in- 
timation that  they  were  to  go  out  and  march  toward  India 
in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  treaty  extorted  from 
Elphinstone  at  Cabul.  They  very  properly  declined  to  be 
bound  by  a  treaty  which,  as  General  Sale  rightly  conjec- 
tured, had  been  "  forced  from  our  envoy  and  military  com- 
mander with  the  knives  at  their  throats."     General  Sale's 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  199 

determination  was  clear  and  simple.  "  I  propose  to  hold 
this  place  on  the  part  of  Government  until  I  receive  its 
order  to  the  contrary."  This  resolve  of  Sale's  was  really 
the  turning-point  of  the  history.  Sale  held  Jellalabad; 
Nott  was  at  Candahar.  Akbar  Khan  besieged  Jellalabad. 
Nature  seemed  to  have  declared  herself  emphatically  on 
his  side,  for  a  succession  of  earthquake  shocks  shattered 
the  walls  of  the  place,  and  produced  more  terrible  destruc- 
tion than  the  most  formidable  guns  of  modern  warfare 
could  have  done.  But  the  garrison  held  out  fearlessly; 
they  restored  the  parapets,  re-established  every  batter}', 
re-trenched  the  whole  of  the  gates,  and  built  up  all  the 
breaches.  They  resisted  every  attempt  of  Akbar  Khan 
to  advance  upon  their  works,  and  at  length,  when  it  be- 
came certain  that  General  Pollock  was  forcing  the  Khyber 
Pass  to  come  to  their  relief,  they  determined  to  attack 
Akbar  Khan's  army;  they  issued  boldly  out  of  their  forts, 
forced  a  battle  on  the  Afghan  chief,  and  completely  de- 
feated him.  Before  Pollock,  having  gallantly  fought  his 
way  through  the  Khyber  Pass,  had  reached  Jellalabad, 
the  beleaguering  army  had  been  entirely  defeated  and  dis- 
persed. General  Nott  at  Candahar  was  ready  now  to  co- 
operate with  General  Sale  and  General  Pollock  for  any 
movement  on  Cabul  which  the  authorities  might  advise  or 
sanction.  Meanwhile  the  unfortunate  Shah  Soojah,  whom 
we  had  restored  with  so  much  pomp  of  announcement  to 
the  throne  of  his  ancestors,  was  dead.  He  was  assassinated 
in  Cabul,  soon  after  the  departure  of  the  British,  by  the 
orders  of  some  of  the  chiefs  who  detested  him;  and  his 
body,  stripped  of  its  royal  robes  and  its  many  jewels,  was 
flung  into  a  ditch.  Historians  quarrel  a  good  deal  over 
the  question  of  his  sincerity  and  fidelity  in  his  dealings 
with  us.  It  is  not  likely  that  an  Oriental  of  his  tempera- 
ment and  his  weakness  could  have  been  capable  of  any 
genuine  and  unmixed  loyalty  to  the  English  strangers. 
It  seems  to  us  probable  enough  that  he  may  at  important 
moments  have  wavered  and  even  faltered,  glad  to  take 


200  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

advantage  of  any  movement  that  might  safely  rid  him  of 
us,  and  yet,  on  the  whole,  preferring  our  friendship  and 
our  protection  to  the  tender  mercies  which  he  was  doomed 
to  experience  when  our  troops  had  left  him.  But  if  we 
ask  concerning  his  gratitude  to  us,  it  may  be  well  also  to 
ask  what  there  was  in  our  conduct  toward  him  which 
called  for  any  enthusiastic  display  of  gratitude.  We  did 
not  help  him  out  of  any  love  for  him,  or  any  concern  for 
the  justice  of  his  cause.  It  served  us  to  have  a  puppet, 
and  we  took  him  when  it  suited  us.  We  also  abandoned 
him  when  it  suited  us.  As  Lady  Teazle  proposes  to  do 
with  honor  in  her  conference  with  Joseph  Surface,  so  we 
ought  to  do  with  gratitude  in  discussing  the  merits  of  Shah 
Soojah — leave  it  out  of  the  question.  What  Shah  Soojah 
owed  to  us  were  a  few  weeks  of  idle  pomp  and  absurd 
dreams,  a  bitter  awakening,  and  a  shameful  death. 

Durinof  this  time  a  new  Governor-General  had  arrived 
in  India.  Lord  Auckland's  time  had  run  out,  and  during 
its  latter  months  he  had  become  nerveless  and  despondent 
because  of  the  utter  failure  of  the  policy  which,  in  an  evil 
hour  for  himself  and  his  country,  he  had  been  induced  to 
undertake.  It  does  not  seem  that  it  ever  was  at  heart  a 
policy  of  his  own,  and  he  knew  that  the  East  India  Com- 
pany were  altogether  opposed  to  it.  The  Company  were 
well  aware  of  the  vast  expense  which  our  enterprises  in 
Afghanistan  must  impose  on  the  revenues  of  India,  and 
they  looked  forward  eagerly  to  the  earliest  opportunity  of 
bringing  it  to  a  close.  Lord  Auckland  had  been  per- 
suaded into  adopting  it  against  his  better  judgment,  and 
against  even  the  whisperings  of  his  conscience;  and  now 
he  too  longed  to  be  done  with  it;  but  he  wished  to  leave 
Afghanistan  as  a  magnanimous  conqueror.  He  had  in 
his  own  person  discounted  the  honors  of  victory.  He  had 
received  an  earldom  for  the  services  he  was  presumed  to 
have  rendered  to  his  sovereign  and  his  country.  He  had, 
therefore,  in  full  sight  that  mournful  juxtaposition  of  in- 
congruous objects  which  a  great  English  writer  has  de- 


The  Disasters  of  Cahtil.  201 

scribed  so  touchingly  and  tersely — the  trophies  of  victory 
and  the  battle  lost.  He  was  an  honorable,  kindly  gentle- 
man, and  the  news  of  all  the  successive  calamities  fell 
upon  him  with  a  crushing,  an  overwhelming  weight.  In 
plain  language,  the  Governor-General  lost  his  head.  He 
seemed  to  have  no  other  idea  than  that  of  getting  all  our 
troops  as  quickly  as  might  be  out  of  Afghanistan,  and 
shaking  the  dust  of  the  place  off  our  feet  forever.  It  may 
be  doubted  whether,  if  we  had  pursued  such  a  policy  as 
this,  we  might  not  as  well  have  left  India  itself  once  for 
all.  If  we  had  allowed  it  to  seem  clear  to  the  Indian 
populations  and  princes  that  we  could  be  driven  out  of 
Afghanistan  with  humiliation  and  disaster,  and  that  we 
were  unable  or  afraid  to  strike  one  blow  to  redeem  our 
military  credit,  we  should  before  long  have  seen  in  Hin- 
dostan  many  an  attempt  to  enact  there  the  scenes  of  Cabul 
and  Candahar.  Unless  a  moralist  is  prepared  to  say  that 
a  nation  which  has  committed  one  error  of  policy  is  bound 
in  conscience  to  take  all  the  worst  and  most  protracted 
consequences  of  that  error,  and  never  make  any  attempt 
to  protect  itself  against  them,  even  a  moralist  of  the  most 
scrupulous  character  can  hardly  deny  that  we  were  bound, 
for  the  sake  of  our  interests  in  Europe  as  well  as  in  India, 
to  prove  that  our  strength  had  not  been  broken  nor  our 
counsels  paralyzed  by  the  disasters  in  Afghanistan.  Yet 
Lord  Auckland  does  not  appear  to  have  thought  anything 
of  the  kind  either  needful  or  within  the  compass  of  our 
national  strength.     He  was,  in  fact,  a  broken  man. 

His  successor  came  out  with  the  brightest  hopes  of  In- 
dia and  the  world,  founded  on  his  energy  and  strength  of 
mind.  The  successor  was  Lord  Ellenborough,  the  son 
of  that  Edward  Law,  afterward  Lord  Ellenborough,  Chief- 
justice  of  the  King's  Bench,  who  had  been  leading  counsel 
for  Warren  Hastings  when  the  latter  was  impeached  be- 
fore the  House  of  Lords.  The  second  Ellenborough  was 
at  the  time  of  his  appointment  filling  the  office  of  President 
of  the  Board  of  Control,  an  office  he  had  held  before.     He 


202  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times.  \ 

was  therefore  well  acquainted  with  the  affairs  of  India. 
He  had  come  into  office  under  Sir  Robert  Peel  on  the 
resignation  of  the  Melbourne  Ministry.  He  was  looked 
upon  as  a  man  of  great  ability  and  energy.  It  was  known 
that  his  personal  predilections  were  for  the  career  of  a 
soldier.  He  was  fond  of  telling  his  hearers  then  and  since 
that  the  life  of  a  camp  was  that  which  he  should  have 
loved  to  lead.  He  was  a  man  of  great  and,  in  certain 
lights,  apparently  splendid  abilities.  There  was  a  certain 
Orientalism  about  his  language,  his  aspirations,  and  his 
policy.  He  loved  gorgeousness  and  dramatic — ill-natured 
persons  said  theatric — effects.  Life  arranged  itself  in  his 
eyes  as  a  superb  and  showy  pageant,  of  which  it  would 
have  been  his  ambition  to  form  the  central  figure.  His 
eloquence  was  often  of  a  lofty  and  noble  order.  Men  who 
are  still  hardly  of  middle  age  can  remember  Lord  Ellen- 
borough  on  great  occasions  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  can 
recollect  their  having  been  deeply  impressed  by  him,  even 
though  they  had  but  lately  heard  such  speakers  as  Glad- 
stone or  Bright  in  the  other  House.  It  was  not  easy,  in- 
deed, sometimes  to  avoid  the  conviction  that  in  listening 
to  Lord  Ellenborough  one  was  listening  to  a  really  great 
orator  of  a  somewhat  antique  and  stately  type,  who  attuned 
his  speech  to  the  pitch  of  an  age  of  loftier  and  less  prosaic 
aims  than  ours.  When  he  had  a  great  question  to  deal 
with,  and  when  his  instincts,  if  not  his  reasoning  power, 
had  put  him  on  the  right  or  at  least  the  effective  side  of 
it,  he  could  speak  in  a  tone  of  poetic  and  elevated  elo- 
quence to  which  it  was  impossible  to  listen  without  emotion. 
But  if  Lord  Ellenborough  was  in  some  respects  a  man  of 
genius,  he  was  also  a  man  whose  love  of  mere  effects  often 
made  him  seem  like  a  quack.  There  are  certain  characters 
in  which  a  little  of  unconscious  quackery  is  associated 
with  some  of  the  elements  of  true  genius.  Lord  Ellen- 
borough was  one  of  these.  Far  greater  men  than  he  must 
be  associated  in  the  same  category.  The  elder  Pitt,  the 
first  Napoleon,  Mirabeau,  Bolingbroke,  and  many  others, 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  20} 

were  men  in  whom  undoubtedly  some  of  the  charlatan  was 
mixed  up  with  some  of  the  very  highest  qualities  of  genius. 
In  Lord  Ellenborough  this  blending  was  strongly  and 
sometimes  even  startlingly  apparent.  To  this  hour  there 
are  men  who  knew  him  well  in  public  and  private  on 
whom  his  weaknesses  made  so  disproportionate  an  impres- 
sion that  they  can  see  in  him  little  more  than  a  mere  char- 
latan. This  is  entirely  unjust.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
abilities  and  earnestness,  who  had  in  him  a  strange  dash 
of  the  play-actor,  who  at  the  most  serious  moment  of  emer- 
gency always  thought  of  how  to  display  himself  effectively, 
and  who  would  have  met  the  peril  of  an  empire  as  poor 
Narcissa  met  death,  with  an  overmastering  desire  to  show 
to  the  best  personal  advantage. 

Lord  Ellenborough's  appointment  was  hailed  by  all 
parties  in  India  as  the  most  auspicious  that  could  be  made. 
Here,  people  said,  is  surely  the  great  stage  for  a  great 
actor;  and  now  the  great  actor  is  coming.  There  would 
be  something  fascinating  to  a  temper  like  his  in  the 
thought  of  redeeming  the  military  honor  of  his  country 
and  standing  out  in  history  as  the  avenger  of  the  shames 
of  Cabul.  But  those  who  thought  in  this  way  found  them- 
selves suddenly  disappointed.  Lord  Ellenborough  uttered 
and  wrote  a  few  showy  sentences  about  revenging  our 
losses  and  "  re-establishing  in  all  its  original  brilliancy 
our  military  character. "  But  when  he  had  done  this  he 
seemed  to  have  relieved  his  mind  and  to  have  done  enough. 
With  him  there  was  a  constant  tendency  to  substitute 
grandiose  phrases  for  deeds ;  or  perhaps  to  think  that  the 
phrase  was  the  thing  of  real  moment.  He  said  these  fine 
words,  and  then  at  once  he  announced  that  the  only  object 
of  the  Government  was  to  get  the  troops  out  of  Afghan- 
istan as  quickly  as  might  be,  and  almost  on  any  terms. 
The  whole  of  Lord  Ellenborough's  conduct  during  this 
Crisis  is  inexplicable,  except  on  the  assumption  that  he 
really  did  not  know  at  certain  times  how  to  distinguish 
between    phrases    and    actions.      A  general   outcry  was 


204  A  Htsfory  of  Our  Own  Times. 

raised  in  India  and  among  the  troops  in  Afghanistan 
against  the  extraordinary  policy  which  Lord  EUenborough 
propounded.  Englishmen,  in  fact,  refused  to  believe  in 
it;  took  it  as  something  that  must  be  put  aside.  English 
soldiers  could  not  believe  that  they  were  to  be  recalled 
after  defeat;  they  persisted  in  the  conviction  that,  let  the 
Governor-General  say  what  he  might,  his  intention  must  be 
that  the  army  should  retrieve  its  fame  and  retire  only  after 
complete  victory.  The  Governor-General  himself  after 
a  while  quietly  acted  on  this  interpretation  of  his  meaning. 
He  allowed  the  military  commanders  in  Afghanistan  to 
pull  their  resources  together  and  prepare  for  inflicting 
signal  chastisement  on  the  enemy.  They  were  not  long 
in  doing  this.  They  encountered  the  enemy  wherever  he 
showed  himself  and  defeated  him.  They  recaptured  town 
after  town,  until  at  length,  on  September  15th,  1842,  Gen- 
eral Pollock's  force  entered  Cabul.  A  few  days  after,  as 
a  lasting  mark  of  retribution  for  the  crimes  which  had 
been  committed  there,  the  British  commander  ordered  the 
destruction  of  the  great  bazaar  of  Cabul,  where  the  mangled 
remains  of  the  unfortunate  envoy  Macnaghten  had  been 
exhibited  in  brutal  triumph  and  joy  to  the  Afghan  popu- 
lace. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  detailed  descriptions 
of  the  successful  progress  of  our  arms.  The  war  may  be 
regarded  as  over.  It  is,  however,  necessary  to  say  some- 
thing of  the  fate  of  the  captives,  or  hostages,  who  were 
hurried  away  that  terrible  January  night  at  the  command 
of  Akbar  Khan.  One  thing  has  first  to  be  told  which  some 
may  now  receive  with  incredulity,  but  which  is,  neverthe- 
less, true — there  was  a  British  general  who  was  disposed 
to  leave  them  to  their  fate  and  take  no  trouble  about  them, 
and  who  declared  himself  under  the  conviction,  from  the 
tenor  of  all  Lord  EUenborough 's  despatches,  that  the  re- 
covery of  the  prisoners  was  *'  a  matter  of  indifference  to 
the  Government. "  There  seems  to  have  been  some  un- 
happy spell  working  against  us  in  all  this  chapter  of  our 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  205 

history,  by  virtue  of  which  even  its  most  brilliant  pages 
were  destined  to  have  something  ignoble  or  ludicrous 
written  on  them.  Better  counsels,  however,  prevailed. 
General  Pollock  insisted  on  an  effort  being  made  to  recover 
the  prisoners  before  the  troops  began  to  return  to  India, 
and  he  appointed  to  this  noble  duty  the  husband  of  one  of 
the  hostage  ladies — Sir  Robert  Sale.  The  prisoners  were 
recovered  with  greater  ease  than  was  expected — so  many 
of  them  as  were  yet  alive.  Poor  General  Elphinstone  had 
long  before  succumbed  to  disease  and  hardship.  The 
ladies  had  gone  through  strange  privations.  Thirty-six 
years  ago  the  tale  of  the  captivity  of  Lady  Sale  and  her 
companions  was  in  every  mouth  all  over  England;  nor  did 
any  civilized  land  fail  to  take  an  interest  in  the  strange 
and  pathetic  story.  They  were  hurried  from  fort  to  fort, 
as  the  designs  and  the  fortunes  of  Akbar  Khan  dictated 
his  disposal  of  them.  They  suffered  almost  every  fierce 
alternation  of  cold  and  heat.  They  had  to  live  on  the 
coarsest  fare ;  they  were  lodged  in  a  manner  which  would 
have  made  the  most  wretched  prison  accommodation  of  a 
civilized  country  seem  luxurious  by  comparison;  they 
were  in  constant  uncertainty  and  fear,  not  knowing  what 
might  befall.  Yet  they  seem  to  have  held  up  their  cour- 
age and  spirits  wonderfully  well,  and  to  have  kept  the 
hearts  of  the  children  alive  with  mirth  and  sport  at  mo- 
ments of  the  utmost  peril.  Gradually  it  became  more 
and  more  suspected  that  the  fortunes  of  Akbar  Khan  were 
falling.  At  last  it  was  be5'ond  doubt  that  he  had  been 
completely  defeated.  Then  they  were  hurried  away 
again,  they  knew  not  whither,  through  ever-ascending 
mountain-passes,  under  a  scorching  sun.  They  were  be- 
ing carried  off  to  the  wild,  rugged  regions  of  the  Indian 
Caucasus.  They  were  bestowed  in  a  miserable  fort  at 
Bameean.  They  were  now  under  the  charge  of  one  of 
Akbar  Khan's  soldiers  of  fortune.  This  man  had  begun 
to  suspect  that  things  were  well-nigh  hopeless  with  Akbar 
Khan.     He  was  induced  by  gradual  and  very  cautious  ap- 


2o6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

preaches  to  enter  into  an  agreement  with  the  prisoners  for 
their  release.  The  English  officers  signed  an  agreement 
with  him  to  secure  him  a  large  reward  and  a  pension  for 
life  if  he  enabled  them  to  escape.  He  accordingly  de- 
clared that  he  renounced  his  allegiance  to  Akbar  Khan ; 
all  the  more  readily  seeing  that  news  came  in  of  the  chief's 
total  defeat  and  flight,  no  one  knew  whither.  The  pris- 
oners and  their  escort,  lately  their  jailer  and  guards,  set 
forth  on  their  way  to  General  Pollock's  camp.  On  their 
way  they  met  the  English  parties  sent  out  to  seek  for  them. 
Sir  Robert  Sale  found  his  wife  again.  "Our  joy,"  says 
one  of  the  rescued  prisoners,  "was  too  great,  too  over- 
whelming, for  tongue  to  utter."  Description,  indeed, 
could  do  nothing  for  the  effect  of  such  a  meeting  but  to 
spoil  it. 

There  is  a  very  different  ending  to  the  episode  of  the 
English  captives  in  Bokhara.  Colonel  Stoddart,  who  had 
been  sent  to  the  Persian  camp  in  the  beginning  of  all  these 
events  to  insist  that  Persia  must  desist  from  the  siege  of 
Herat,  was  sent  subsequently  on  a  mission  to  the  Ameer 
of  Bokhara.  The  Ameer  received  him  favorably  at  first, 
but  afterward  became  suspicious  of  English  designs  of 
conquest  and  treated  Stoddart  with  marked  indignity. 
The  Ameer  appears  to  have  been  the  very  model  of  a 
melodramatic  Eastern  tyrant.  He  was  cruel  and  capricious 
as  another  Caligula,  and  perhaps,  in  truth,  quite  as  mad. 
He  threw  Stoddart  into  prison.  Captain  Conolly  was  ap- 
pointed two  years  after  to  proceed  to  Bokhara  and  other 
countries  of  the  same  region.  He  undertook  to  endeavor 
to  effect  the  liberation  of  Stoddart,  but  could  only  succeed 
in  sharing  his  sufferings,  and,  at  last,  his  fate.  The 
Ameer  had  written  a  letter  to  the  Queen  of  England,  and 
the  answer  was  written  by  the  Foreign  Secretary,  referring 
the  Ameer  to  the  Governor-General  of  India.  The  savage 
tyrant  redoubled  the  ill-treatment  of  his  captives.  He 
accused  them  of  being  spies  and  of  giving  help  to  his 
enemies.     The  Indian  Government  were  of  opinion  that 


The  Disasters  of  Cabul.  207 

the  envoys  had  in  some  manner  exceeded  their  instructions, 
and  that  Conolly,  in  particular,  had  contributed  by  indis- 
cretion to  his  own  fate.  Nothing,  therefore,  was  done  to 
obtain  their  release  beyond  diplomatic  efforts,  and  appeals 
to  the  magnanimity  of  the  Ameer,  which  had  not  any  par- 
ticular effect.  Dr.  Wolff,  the  celebrated  traveller  and 
missionary,  afterward  undertook  an  expedition  of  his  own 
in  the  hope  of  saving  the  unfortunate  captives;  but  he 
only  reached  Bokhara  in  time  to  hear  that  they  had  been 
put  to  death.  The  moment  and  the  actual  manner  of  their 
death  cannot  be  known  to  positive  certainty,  but  there  is 
little  doubt  that  they  were  executed  on  the  same  day  by 
the  orders  of  the  Ameer.  The  journals  of  Conolly  have 
been  preserved  up  to  an  advanced  period  of  his  captivity, 
and  they  relieve  so  far  the  melancholy  of  the  fate  that  fell 
on  the  unfortunate  officers  by  showing  that  the  horrors  of 
their  hopeless  imprisonment  were  so  great  that  their  dear- 
est friends  must  have  been  glad  to  know  of  their  release, 
even  by  the  knife  of  the  executioner.  It  is  perhaps  not 
the  least  bitter  part  of  the  story  that,  in  the  belief  of  many, 
including  the  unfortunate  officers  themselves,  the  course 
pursued  by  the  English  authorities  in  India  had  done  more 
to  hand  them  over  to  the  treacherous  cruelty  of  their 
captor  than  to  release  them  from  his  power.  In  truth, 
the  authorities  in  India  had  had  enough  of  intervention. 
It  would  have  needed  a  great  exigency,  indeed,  to  stir 
them  into  energy  of  action  soon  again  in  Central  Asia. 

This  thrilling  chapter  of  English  history  closes  with 
something  like  a  piece  of  harlequinade.  The  curtain  fell 
amidst  general  laughter.  Only  the  genius  of  Lord  Ellen- 
borough  could  have  turned  the  mood  of  India  and  of  Eng- 
land to  mirth  on  such  a  subject.  Lord  EUenborough  was 
equal  to  this  extraordinary  feat.  The  never-to-be-forgot- 
ten proclamation  about  the  restoration  to  India  of  the 
gates  of  the  Temple  of  Somnauth,  redeemed  at  Lord 
EUenborough 's  orders  when  Ghuznee  was  retaken  by  the 
English,  was  first  received  with  incredulity  as  a  practical 


2o8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

joke;  then  with  one  universal  burst  of  laughter;  theii 
with  indignation;  and  then,  again,  when  the  natural  anger 
had  died  away,  with  laughter  again.  "  My  brothers  and 
my  friends,"  wrote  Lord  Ellenborough  "  to  all  the  princes, 
chiefs,  and  people  of  India, " — "  Our  victorious  army  bears 
the  gates  of  the  Temple  of  Somnauth  in  triumph  from 
Afghanistan,  and  the  despoiled  tomb  of  Sultan  Mahmoud 
looks  upon  the  ruins  of  Ghuznee.  The  insult  of  eight 
hundred  years  is  at  last  avenged.  The  gates  of  the  Temple 
of  Somnauth,  so  long  the  memorial  of  your  humiliation, 
are  become  the  proudest  record  of  your  national  glory; 
the  proof  of  your  superiority  in  arms  over  the  nations  be- 
yond the  Indus." 

No  words  of  pompous  man  could  possibly  have  put  to- 
gether greater  absurdities.  The  brothers  and  friends  were 
Mohammedans  and  Hindoos,  who  were  about  as  likely  to 
agree  as  to  the  effect  of  these  symbols  of  triumph  as  a 
Fenian  and  an  Orangeman  would  be  to  fraternize  in  a 
toast  to  the  glorious,  pious,  and  immortal  memory.  To 
the  Mohammedans  the  triumph  of  Lord  Ellenborough  was 
simply  an  insult.  To  the  Hindoos  the  'offer  was  ridicu- 
lous, for  the  Temple  of  Somnauth  itself  was  in  ruins,  and 
the  ground  it  covered  was  trodden  by  Mohammedans. 
To  finish  the  absurdity,  the  gates  proved  not  to  be  genuine 
relics  at  all. 

On  October  ist,  1842,  exactly  four  years  since  Lord 
Auckland's  proclamation  announcing  and  justifying  the 
intervention  to  restore  Shah  Soojah,  Lord  Ellenborough 
issued  another  proclamation  announcing  the  complete 
failure  and  the  revocation  of  the  policy  of  his  predecessor. 
Lord  Ellenborough  declared  that  "  to  force  a  sovereign 
upon  a  reluctant  people  would  be  as  inconsistent  with  the 
policy  as  it  is  with  the  principles  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment;" that,  therefore,  they  would  recognize  any  govern- 
ment approved  by  the  Afghans  themselves ;  that  the  British 
arms  would  be  withdrawn  from  Afghanistan,  and  that  the 
Government  of  India  would  remain  "content  with   the 


The  Disasters  of  Cabut.  209 

limits  nature  appears  to  have  assigned  to  its  empire." 
Dost  Mahomed  was  released  from  his  captivity,  and  be- 
fore long  was  ruler  of  Cabul  once  again.  Thus  ended  the 
story  of  our  expedition  to  reorganize  the  internal  condi- 
tion of  Afghanistan.  After  four  years  of  unparalleled 
trial  and  disaster,  everything  was  restored  to  the  condition 
in  which  we  found  it,  except  that  there  were  so  many 
brave  Englishmen  sleeping  in  bloody  graves.  The  Duke 
of  Wellington  ascribed  the  causes  of  our  failure  to  making 
war  with  a  peace  establishment;  making  war  without  a 
safe  base  of  operations ;  carrying  the  native  army  out  of 
India  into  a  strange  and  cold  climate ;  invading  a  poor 
country  which  was  unequal  to  the  supply  of  our  wants ; 
giving  undue  power  to  political  agents;  want  of  fore- 
thought and  undue  confidence  in  the  Afghans  on  the  part 
of  Sir  W.  Macnaghten ;  placing  our  magazines,  even  our 
treasure,  in  indefensible  places;  great  military  neglect 
and  mismanagement  after  the  outbreak.  Doubtless  these 
were,  in  a  military  sense,  the  reasons  for  the  failure  of 
an  enterprise  which  cost  the  revenues  of  India  an  enormous 
amount  of  treasure.  But  the  causes  of  failure  were  deeper 
than  any  military  errors  could  explain.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  the  genius  of  a  Napoleon  and  the  forethought  of 
a  Wellington  could  have  won  an)'  permanent  success  for 
an  enterprise  founded  on  so  false  and  fatal  a  policy. 
Nothing  in  the  ability  or  devotion  of  those  intrusted  with 
the  task  of  carrying  it  out  could  have  made  it  deserve  suc- 
cess. Our  first  error  of  principle  was  to  go  completely 
out  of  our  way  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  mere  speculative 
dangers ;  our  next  and  far  greater  error  was  made  when  we 
attempted,  in  the  words  of  Lord  Ellenborough's  proclama- 
tion, to  force  a  sovereign  upon  a  reluctant  people. 
Vol.  I. — 14 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE     REPEAL     YEAR. 

"The  year  1843,"  said  O'Connell,  "is  and  shall  be  the 
great  Repeal  year. "  In  the  year  1843,  at  all  events,  O'Con- 
nell and  his  Repeal  agitation  are  entitled  to  the  foremost 
place.  The  character  of  the  man  himself  well  deserves 
some  calm  consideration.  We  are  now,  perhaps,  in  a  con- 
dition to  do  it  justice.  We  are  far  removed  in  sentiment 
and  political  association,  if  not  exactly  in  years,  from  the 
time  when  O'Connell  was  the  idol  of  one  party,  and  the 
object  of  all  the  bitterest  scorn  and  hatred  of  the  other. 
No  man  of  his  time  was  so  madly  worshipped  and  so 
fiercely  denounced.  No  man  in  our  time  was  ever  the  ob- 
ject of  so  much  abuse  in  the  newspapers.  The  fiercest 
and  coarsest  attacks  that  we  can  remember  to  have  been 
made  in  English  journals  on  Cobden  and  Bright  during 
the  heat  of  the  Anti-Corn-law  agitation  seem  placid,  gentle, 
and  almost  complimentary  when  compared  with  the  criti- 
cisms daily  applied  to  O'Connell.  The  only  vituperation 
which  could  equal  in  vehemence  and  scurrility  that  poured 
out  upon  O'Connell  was  that  which  O'Connell  himself 
poured  out  upon  his  assailants.  His  hand  was  against 
every  man,  if  every  man's  hand  was  against  him.  He 
asked  for  no  quarter,  and  1^  gave  none. 

We  have  outlived  not  twl  times  merely,  but  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  times,  so  far  as  political  controversy  is  con- 
cerned. We  are  now  able  to  recognize  the  fact  that  a 
public  man  may  hold  opinions  which  are  distasteful  to  the 
majority,  and  yet  be  perfectly  sincere  and  worthy  of  re- 
spect. We  are  well  aware  that  a  man  may  differ  from  us, 
even  on  vital  questions,  and  yet  be  neither  fool  nor  knave. 


The  Repeal  Year.  2 1 1 

But  this  view  of  things  was  not  generally  taken  in  the 
days  of  O'Connell's  great  agitation.  He  and  his  enemies 
alike  acted  in  their  controversies  on  the  principle  that  a 
political  opponent  is  necessarily  a  blockhead  or  a  scoundrel. 
It  is  strange  and  somewhat  melancholy  to  read  the  stric- 
tures of  so  enlightened  a  woman  as  Miss  Martineau  upon 
O'Connell.  They  are  all  based  upon  what  a  humorous 
writer  has  called  the  "fiend-in-human-shape  theory." 
Miss  Martineau  not  merely  assumes  that  O'Connell  was 
absolutely  insincere  and  untrustworthy,  but  discourses  of 
him  on  the  assumption  that  he  was  knowingly  and  pur- 
posely a  villain.  Not  only  does  she  hold  that  his  Repeal 
agitation  was  an  unqualified  evil  for  his  country,  and  that 
Repeal,  if  gained,  would  have  been  a  curse  to  it,  but  she 
insists  that  O'Connell  himself  was  thoroughly  convinced 
of  the  facts.  She  devotes  whole  pages  of  lively  and  acrid 
argument  to  prove  not  only  that  O'Connell  was  ruining 
his  coimtry,  but  that  he  knew  he  was  ruining  it,  and  per- 
severed in  his  wickedness  out  of  pure  self-seeking.  No 
writer  possessed  of  one-tenth  of  Miss  Martineau 's  intellect 
and  education  would  now  reason  after  that  fashion  about 
any  public  man.  If  there  is  any  common  delusion  of  past 
days  which  may  be  taken  as  entirely  exploded  now,  it  is 
the  idea  that  any  man  ever  swayed  vast  masses  of  people, 
and  became  the  idol  and  the  hero  of  a  nation,  by  the 
strength  of  a  conscious  hypocrisy  and  imposture. 

O'Connell  in  this  Repeal  year,  as  he  called  it,  was  by 
far  the  most  prominent  politician  in  these  countries  who 
had  never  been  in  office.  He  had  been  the  patron  of  the 
Melbourne  Ministry,  and  his  patronage  had  proved  baneful 
to  it.  One  of  the  great  causes  of  the  detestation  in  which 
the  Melbourne  Whigs  were  held  by  a  vast  number  of  Eng- 
lish people  was  their  alleged  subserviency  to  the  Irish 
agitator.  We  cannot  be  surprised  if  the  English  public 
just  then  was  little  inclined  to  take  an  impartial  estimate 
of  O'Connell.  He  had  attacked  some  of  their  public  men 
in  language  of  the  fiercest  denunciation.     He  had  started 


212  A  History  of  Our  Ozvn  Times. 

an  agitation  which  seemed  as  if  it  were  directly  meant  to 
bring  about  a  break-up  of  the  Imperial  system  so  lately 
completed  by  the  Act  of  Union.  He  was  opposed  to  the 
existence  of  the  State  Church  in  Ireland.  He  was  the 
bitter  enemy  of  the  Irish  landlord  class — of  the  landlords, 
that  is  to  say,  who  took  their  title  in  any  way  from  Eng- 
land. He  was  familiarly  known  in  the  graceful  contro- 
versy of  the  time  as  the  "  Big  Beggarman. "  It  was  an 
article  of  faith  with  the  general  public  that  he  was  enrich- 
ing himself  at  the  expense  of  a  poor  and  foolish  people. 
It  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  he  had  given  up  a  splendid 
practice  at  the  bar  to  carry  on  his  agitation ;  that  he  lost 
by  the  agitation,  pecuniarily,  far  more  than  he  ever  got 
by  it;  that  he  had  not  himself  received  from  first  to  last 
anything  like  the  amount  of  the  noble  tribute  so  becom- 
ingly and  properly  given  to  Mr.  Cobden,  and  so  honorably 
accepted  by  him ;  and  that  he  died  poor,  leaving  his  sons 
poor.  Indeed,  it  is  a  remarkable  evidence  of  the  purify- 
ing nature  of  any  great  political  cause,  even  where  the 
object  sought  is  but  a  phantom,  that  it  is  hardly  possible 
to  give  a  single  instance  of  a  great  political  agitation  car- 
ried on  in  these  countries  and  in  modern  times  by  leaders 
who  had  any  primary  purpose  of  making  money.  But  at 
that  time  the  general  English  public  were  firmly  convinced 
that  O'Connell  was  simply  keeping  up  his  agitation  for 
the  sake  of  pocketing  "the  rent."  Some  of  the  qualities, 
too,  that  specially  endeared  him  to  his  Celtic  countrymen 
made  him  particularly  objectionable  to  Englishmen;  and 
Englishmen  have  never  been  famous  for  readiness  to  enter 
into  the  feelings  and  accept  the  point  of  view  of  other  peo- 
ples. O'Connell  was  a  thorough  Celt.  He  represented  all 
the  impulsiveness,  the  quick-changing  emotions,  the  pas- 
sionate, exaggerated  loves  and  hatreds,  the  heedlessness 
of  statement,  the  tendency  to  confound  impressions  with 
facts,  the  ebullient  humor — all  the  other  qualities  that  are 
especially  characteristic  of  the  Celt.  The  Irish  people 
were  the  audience  to  which  O'Connell  habitually  pla3'ed. 


The  Repeal  Year.  213 

It  may,  indeed,  be  said  that  even  in  playing  to  this  audi- 
ence he  commonly  played  to  the  gallery.  As  the  orator 
of  a  popular  assembly,  as  the  orator  of  a  monster  meeting, 
he  probably  never  had  an  equal  in  these  countries.  He 
had  many  of  the  physical  endowments  that  are  especially 
favorable  to  success  in  such  a  sphere.  He  had  a  herculean 
frame,  a  stately  presence,  a  face  capable  of  expressing 
easily  and  effectively  the  most  rapid  alternations  of  mood, 
and  a  voice  which  all  hearers  admit  to  have  been  almost 
unrivalled  for  strength  and  sweetness.  Its  power,  its 
pathos,  its  passion,  its  music  have  been  described  in  words 
of  positive  rapture  by  men  who  detested  O'Connell,  and 
who  would  rather,  if  they  could,  have  denied  to  him  any 
claim  on  public  attention,  even  in  the  matter  of  voice. 
He  spoke  without  studied  preparation,  and  of  course  had 
all  the  defects  of  such  a  style.  He  fell  into  repetition  and 
into  carelessness  of  construction;  he  was  hurried  away 
into  exaggeration  and  sometimes  into  mere  bombast.  But 
he  had  all  the  peculiar  success,  too,  which  rewards  the 
orator  who  can  speak  without  preparation.  He  always 
spoke  right  to  the  hearts  of  his  hearers.  On  the  platform 
or  in  Parliament,  whatever  he  said  was  said  to  his  audi- 
ence, and  was  never  in  the  nature  of  a  discourse  delivered 
over  their  heads.  He  entered  the  House  of  Commons 
when  he  was  nearly  fifty-four  years  of  age.  Most  persons 
supposed  that  the  style  of  speaking  he  had  formed,  first  in 
addressing  juries,  and  next  in  rousing  Irish  mobs,  must 
cause  his  failure  when  he  came  to  appeal  to  the  unsym- 
pathetic and  fastidious  House  of  Commons.  But  it  is  cer- 
tain that  O'Connell  became  one  of  the  most  successful 
Parliamentary  orators  of  his  time.  Lord  Jeffrey,  a  profes- 
sional critic,  declared  that  all  other  speakers  in  the  House 
seemed  to  him  only  talking  school-boy  talk  after  he  had 
heard  O'Connell.  No  man  we  now  know  of  is  less  likely 
to  be  carried  away  by  any  of  the  clap-trap  arts  of  a  false 
demagogic  style  than  Mr.  Roebuck ;  and  Mr.  Roebuck  has 
said  that  he  considers  O'Connell  the  greatest  orator  he  ever 


214  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

heard  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Charles  Dickens,  when 
a  reporter  in  the  galler)%  where  he  had  few  equals,  if  any, 
in  his  craft,  put  down  his  pencil  once  when  engaged  in 
reporting  a  speech  of  O'Connell's  on  one  of  the  tithe  riots 
in  Ireland,  and  declared  that  he  could  not  take  notes  of 
the  speech,  so  moved  was  he  by  its  pathos.  Lord  Beacons- 
field,  who  certainly  had  no  great  liking  for  O'Connell,  has 
spoken  in  terms  as  high  as  any  one  could  use  about  his 
power  over  the  House.  But  O'Connell's  eloquence  only 
helped  him  to  make  all  the  more  enemies  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  He  was  reckless  even  there  in  his  denuncia- 
tion, although  he  took  care  never  to  obtrude  on  Parliament 
the  extravagant  and  unmeaning  abuse  of  opponents  which 
delighted  the  Irish  mob  meetings. 

O'Connell  was  a  crafty  and  successful  lawyer.  The 
Irish  peasant,  like  the  Scottish,  is,  or  at  least  then  was, 
remarkably  fond  of  litigation.  He  delighted  in  the  quirks 
and  quibbles  of  law,  and  in  the  triumphs  won  by  the  skill 
of  lawyers  over  opponents.  He  admired  O'Connell  all  the 
more  when  O'Connell  boasted  and  proved  that  he  could 
drive  a  coach  and  six  through  any  Act  of  Parliament. 
One  of  the  pet  heroes  of  Irish  legend  is  a  personage  whose 
cleverness  and  craft  procure  for  him  a  sobriquet  which  has 
been  rendered  into  English  by  the  words  "twists  upon 
twists  and  tricks  upon  tricks."  O'Connell  was  in  the  eyes 
of  many  of  the  Irish  peasantry  an  embodiment  of  "  twists 
upon  twists  and  tricks  upon  tricks,"  enlisted  in  their  cause 
for  the  confusion  of  their  adversaries.  He  had  borne  the 
leading  part  in  carrying  Catholic  emancipation.  He  had 
encountered  all  the  danger  and  responsibility  of  the  some- 
what aggressive  movement  by  which  it  was  finally  secured. 
It  is  true  that  it  was  a  reform  which  in  the  course  of  civili- 
zation must  have  been  carried.  It  had  in  its  favor  all  the 
enlightenment  of  the  time.  The  eloquence  of  the  great- 
est orators,  the  intellect  of  the  truest  philosophers,  the 
prescience  of  the  wisest  statesmen  had  pleaded  for  it  and 
helped  to  make  its  way  clear.     No  man  can  doubt  that  it 


The  Repeal  Year.  2\^ 

must  in  a  short  time  have  been  carried  if  O'Connell  had 
never  lived.  But  it  was  carried  just  then  by  virtue  of 
O'Connell's  bold  agitation,  and  by  the  wise  resolve  of  the 
Tory  Government  not  to  provoke  a  civil  war.  It  is  deeply 
to  be  regretted  that  Catholic  emancipation  was  not  con- 
ceded to  the  claims  of  justice.  Had  it  been  so  yielded,  it 
is  very  doubtful  whether  we  should  ever  have  heard  much 
of  the  Repeal  agitation.  But  the  Irish  people  saw,  and 
indeed  all  the  world  was  made  aware  of  the  fact,  that 
emancipation  would  not  have  been  conceded,  just  then  at 
least,  but  for  the  fear  of  civil  disturbance.  To  an  Eng- 
lishman looking  coolly  back  from  a  distance,  the  difference 
is  clear  between  granting  to-day,  rather  than  provoke  dis- 
turbance, that  which  every  one  sees  must  be  granted  some 
time,  and  conceding  what  the  vast  majority  of  the  English 
people  believe  can  never  with  propriety  or  even  safety  be 
granted  at  all.  But  we  can  hardly  wonder  if  the  Irish 
peasant  did  not  make  such  distinctions.  All  he  knew  was 
that  O'Connell  had  demanded  Catholic  emancipation,  and 
had  been  answered  at  first  by  a  direct  refusal;  that  he  had 
said  he  would  compel  its  concession,  and  that  in  the  end 
it  was  conceded  to  him.  When,  therefore,  O'Connell  said 
that  he  would  compel  the  Government  to  give  him  repeal 
of  the  Union,  the  Irish  peasant  naturally  believed  that  he 
could  keep  his  word. 

Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  doubt  that  O'Connell  himself 
believed  in  the  possibility  of  accomplishing  his  purpose. 
We  are  apt  now  to  think  of  the  union  between  England 
and  Ireland  as  of  time-honored  endurance.  It  had  been 
scarcely  thirty  years  in  existence  when  O'Connell  entered 
Parliament.  The  veneration  of  ancient  lineage,  the  maj- 
esty of  custom,  the  respect  due  to  the  "  wisdom  of  our  an- 
cestors"— none  of  these  familiar  claims  could  be  urged  on 
behalf  of  the  legislative  union  between  England  and  Ire- 
land. To  O'Connell  it  appeared  simply  as  a  modern  inno- 
vation which  had  nothing  to  be  said  for  it  except  that  a 
majority  of  Englishmen  had  by  threats  and  bribery  forced 


2\6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

it  on  a  majorit}'  of  Irishmen.  Mr.  Lecky,  the  author  of 
the  "  History  of  European  Morals,"  may  be  cited  as  an  im- 
partial authority  on  such  a  subject.  Let  us  see  what  he 
says  in  his  work  on  "  The  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in 
Ireland,"  with  regard  to  the  movement  for  repeal  of  the 
Union,  of  which  it  seems  almost  needless  to  say  he  disap- 
proves. "O'Connell  perceived  clearly,"  says  Mr.  Lecky, 
"  that  the  tendency  of  affairs  in  Europe  was  toward  the 
recognition  of  the  principle  that  a  nation's  will  is  the  one 
legitimate  rule  of  its  government.  All  rational  men  ac- 
knowledged that  the  Union  was  imposed  on  Ireland  by 
corrupt  means,  contrary  to  the  wish  of  one  generation. 
O'Connell  was  prepared  to  show,  by  the  protest  of  the  vast 
majority  of  the  people,  that  it  was  retained  without  the 
acquiescence  of  the  next.  He  had  allied  himself  with  the 
parties  that  were  rising  surely  and  rapidly  to  power  in 
England — with  the  democracy,  whose  gradual  progress  is 
effacing  the  most  venerable  landmarks  of  the  Constitution 
— with  the  Free-traders,  whose  approaching  triumph  he 
had  hailed  and  exulted  in  from  afar.  He  had  perceived 
the  possibility  of  forming  a  powerful  party  in  Parliament, 
which  would  be  free  to  co-operate  with  all  English  parties 
without  coalescing  with  any,  and  might  thus  turn  the 
balance  of  factions  and  decide  the  fate  of  ministries.  He 
saw,  too,  that  while  England  in  a  time  of  peace  might  re- 
sist the  expressed  will  of  the  Irish  nation,  its  policy  would 
be  necessarily  modified  in  time  of  war;  and  he  predicted 
that  should  there  be  a  collision  with  France  while  the  na- 
tion was  organized  as  in  1843,  Repeal  would  be  the  im- 
mediate and  the  inevitable  consequence.  In  a  word,  he 
believed  that  under  a  constitutional  government  the  will 
of  four-fifths  of  a  nation,  if  peacefully,  perseveringly,  and 
energetically  expressed,  must  sooner  or  later  be  trium- 
phant. If  a  war  had  broken  out  during  the  agitation — if 
the  life  of  O'Connell  had  been  prolonged  ten  years  longer — 
if  any  worthy  successor  had  assumed  his  mantle — if  a  fear- 
ful famine  had  not  broken  the  spirit  of  the  people — who  can 


The  Repeal  Year.  217 

say  that  the  agitation  would  not  have  been  successful?" 
No  one,  we  fancy,  except  those  who  are  always  convinced 
that  nothing  can  ever  come  to  pass  which  they  think  ought 
not  to  come  to  pass.  At  all  events,  if  an  English  political 
philosopher,  surveying  the  events  after  a  distance  of  thirty 
years,  is  of  opinion  that  Repeal  was  possible,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  O'Connell  thought  its  attainment  possible  at 
the  time  when  he  set  himself  to  agitate  for  it.  Even  if 
this  be  not  conceded,  it  will  at  least  be  allowed  that  it  is 
not  very  surprising  if  the  Irish  peasant  saw  no  absurdity 
in  the  movement.  Our  system  of  government  by  party 
does  not  lay  claim  to  absolute  perfection.  It  is  an  excel- 
lent mechanism,  on  the  whole;  it  is  probably  the  most 
satisfactory  that  the  wit  of  man  has  yet  devised  for  the 
management  of  the  affairs  of  a  State ;  but  its  greatest  ad- 
mirers will  bear  to  be  told  that  it  has  its  drawbacks  and 
disadvantages.  One  of  these  undoubtedly  is  found  in  the 
fact  that  so  few  reforms  are  accomplished  in  deference  to 
the  claims  of  justice,  in  comparison  with  those  that  are 
yielded  to  the  pressure  of  numbers.  A  great  English 
statesman  in  our  own  day  once  said  that  Parliament  had 
done  many  just  things,  but  few  things  because  they  were 
just.  O'Connell  and  the  Irish  people  saw  that  Catholic 
emancipation  had  been  yielded  to  pressure  rather  than  to 
justice;  it  is  not  wonderful  if  they  thought  that  pressure 
might  prevail  as  well  in  the  matter  of  Repeal. 

In  many  respects  O'Connell  differed  from  more  modern 
Irish  Nationalists.  He  was  a  thorough  Liberal.  He  was 
a  devoted  opponent  of  negro  slavery;  he  was  a  stanch 
Free-trader;  he  was  a  friend  of  popular  education  ;  he  was 
an  enemy  to  all  excess ;  he  was  opposed  to  strikes ;  he  was 
an  advocate  of  religious  equality  everywhere ;  and  he  de- 
clined to  receive  the  commands  of  the  Vatican  in  his 
political  agitation.  "  I  am  a  Catholic,  but  I  am  not  a 
Papist,"  was  his  own  definition  of  his  religious  attitude. 
He  preached  the  doctrine  of  constitutional  agitation 
Strictly,  and  declared  that  no  political  Reform  was  worth 


2i8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  shedding  of  one  drop  of  blood.     It  may  be  asked  how 
it  came  about  that  with  all   these   excellent  attributes, 
which  all  critics  now  allow  to  him,  O'Connell  was  so  de- 
tested by  the  vast  majority  of  the  English  people.     One 
reason,  undoubtedly,   is,   that  O'Connell  deliberately  re- 
vived and  worked  up  for  his  political  purposes  the  almost 
extinct  national  hatreds  of  Celt  and  Saxon.     As  a  phrase 
of  political  controversy,  he  may  be  said  to  have  invented 
the  word  "Saxon."     He  gave  a   terrible   license  to  his 
tongue.     His  abuse  was  outrageous;  his  praise  was  out- 
rageous.    The  very  eifusiveness  of  his  loyalty  told  to  his 
disadvantage.     People  could  not  understand  how  one  who 
perpetually  denounced  "  the  Saxon"  could  be  so  enthusi- 
astic and  rapturous  in  his  professions  of  loyalty  to  the  Sax- 
on's Queen.     In  the  common  opinion  of  Englishmen,  all 
the  evils  of  Ireland,  all  the  troubles  attaching  to  the  con- 
nection between  the  two  countries,  had  arisen  from  this 
unmitigated,  rankling  hatred  of  Celt  for  Saxon.     It  was 
impossible  for  them  to  believe  that  a  man  who  deliberately 
applied  all  the  force  of  his  eloquence  to  revive  it  could  be 
a  genuine  patriot.     It  appeared  intolerable  that  while  thus 
laboring  to  make  the  Celt  hate  the  Saxon  he  should  yet 
profess  an  extravagant  devotion  to  the  Sovereign  of  Eng- 
land.    Yet  O'Connell  was  probably  quite  sincere  in  his 
professions  of  loyalty.     He  was  in  no  sense  a  revolutionist. 
He  had  from  his  education  in  a  French  college  acquired 
an  early  detestation  of  the  principles  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution.    Of  the  Irish  rebels  of  '98  he  spoke  with  as  savage 
an  intolerance  as  the  narrowest  English  Tories  could  show 
in  speaking  of  himself.     The  Tones,  and  Emmetts,  and 
Fitzgeralds,  whom  so  many  of  the  Irish  people  adored, 
were,  in  O'Connell's  eyes,  and  in  his  words,  only  "  a  gang 
of  miscreants."     He  grew  angry  at  the  slightest  expres- 
sion of  an  opinion  among  his  followers  that  seemed  to  de- 
note even  a  willingness  to  discuss  any  of  the  doctrines  of 
Communism.     His  theory  and  his  policy  evidently  were 
that  Ireland  was  to  be  saved  by  a  dictatorship  intrusted  to 


The  Repeal  Year.  219 

himself,  with  the  Irish  priesthood  acting  as  his  officers 
and  agents.  He  maintained  the  authority  of  the  priests, 
and  his  own  authority  by  means  of  them  and  over  them. 
The  political  system  of  the  country  for  the  purposes  of 
agitation  was  to  be  a  sort  of  hierarchy;  the  parish  priests 
occupying  the  lowest  grade,  the  bishops  standing  on  the 
higher  steps,  and  O'Connell  himself  supreme,  as  the  pon- 
tiff, over  all. 

He  had  a  Parliamentary  system  by  means  of  which  he 
proposed  to  approach  more  directly  the  question  of  Repeal 
of  the  Union.  He  got  seats  in  the  House  of  Commons  for 
a  number  of  his  sons,  his  nephews,  and  his  sworn  retainers. 
"O'Connell's  tail"  was  the  precursor  of  "the  Pope's  Brass 
Band"  in  the  slang  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  had 
an  almost  supreme  control  over  the  Irish  constituencies, 
and  whenever  a  vacancy  took  place  he  sent  down  the  Re- 
peal candidate  to  contest  it.  He  always  inculcated  and 
insisted  on  the  necessity  of  order  and  peace.  Indeed,  as 
he  proposed  to  carry  on  his  agitation  altogether  by  the 
help  of  the  bishops  and  the  priests,  it  was  not  possible  for 
him,  even  were  he  so  inclined,  to  conduct  it  on  any  other 
than  peaceful  principles.  "  The  man  who  commits  a  crime 
gives  strength  to  the  enemy,"  was  a  maxim  which  he  was 
never  weary  of  impressing  upon  his  followers.  The 
Temperance  movement  set  on  foot  with  such  remarkable 
and  sudden  success  by  Father  Mathew  was  at  once  turned 
to  account  by  O'Connell.  He  was  himself,  in  his  later 
years  at  all  events,  a  very  temperate  man,  and  he  was  de- 
lighted at  the  prospect  of  good  order  and  discipline  which 
the  Temperance  movement  afforded.  Father  Mathew  was 
very  far  from  sharing  all  the  political  opinions  of  O'Con- 
nell. The  sweet  and  simple  friar,  whose  power  was  that 
of  goodness  and  enthusiasm  only,  and  who  had  but  little 
force  of  character  or  intellect,  shrank  from  political  agita- 
tion, and  was  rather  Conservative  than  otherwise  in  his 
views.  But  he  could  not  afford  to  repudiate  the  support 
of  O'Connell,  who  on  all  occasions  glorified  the  Temper- 


^20  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ance  movement,  and  called  upon  his  followers  to  join  it, 
and  was  always  boasting  of  his  "noble  army  of  Teetotal- 
lers." It  was  probably  when  he  found  that  the  mere  fact 
of  his  having  supported  the  Melbourne  Government  did 
so  much  to  discredit  that  Government  in  the  eyes  of  Eng- 
lishmen, and  to  bring  about  its  fall,  that  O'Connell  went 
deliberately  out  of  the  path  of  mere  Parliamentary  agita- 
tion, and  started  that  system  of  agitation  by  monster  meet- 
ing which  has  since  his  time  been  regularly  established 
among  us  as  a  principal  part  of  all  political  organization 
for  a  definite  purpose.  He  founded  in  Dublin  a  Repeal 
Association  which  met  in  a  place  on  Burgh  Quay,  and 
which  he  styled  Conciliation  Hall.  Aroimd  him  in  this 
Association  he  gathered  his  sons,  his  relatives,  his  devoted 
followers,  priestly  and  lay.  The  Nation  newspaper,  then 
in  its  youth  and  full  of  a  fresh  literary  vigor,  was  one  of 
his  most  brilliant  instruments.  At  a  later  period  of  the 
agitation  it  was  destined  to  be  used  against  him,  and  with 
severe  effect.  The  famous  monster  meetings  were  usually 
held  on  a  Sunday,  on  some  open  spot,  mostly  selected  for 
its  historic  fame,  and  with  all  the  picturesque  surroundings 
of  hill  and  stream.  From  the  dawn  of  the  summer  day 
the  Repealers  were  thronging  to  the  scene  of  the  meeting. 
They  came  from  all  parts  of  the  neighboring  country  for 
miles  and  miles.  They  were  commonly  marshalled  and 
guided  by  their  parish  priests.  They  all  attended  the 
services  of  their  Church  before  the  meeting  began.  The 
influence  of  his  religion  and  of  his  patriotic  feelings  was 
brought  to  bear  at  once  upon  the  impressionable  and  emo- 
tional Irish  Celt.  At  the  meeting  O'Connell  and  several 
of  his  chosen  orators  addressed  the  crowd  on  the  subject 
of  the  wrongs  done  to  Ireland  by  "  the  Saxon,"  the  claims 
of  Ireland  to  the  restoration  of  her  old  Parliament  in  Col- 
lege Green,  and  the  certainty  of  her  having  it  restored  if 
Irishmen  only  obeyed  O'Connell  and' their  priests,  were 
sober,  and  displayed  their  strength  and  their  unity. 

O'Connell  himself,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was  always  the 


The  Repeal  Year.  221 

great  orator  of  the  day.  The  agitation  developed  a  great 
deal  of  literary  talent  among  the  younger  men  of  educa- 
tion ;  but  it  never  brought  out  a  man  who  was  even  spoken 
of  as  a  possible  successor  to  O'Connell  in  eloquence.  His 
magnificent  voice  enabled  him  to  do  what  no  genius  and 
no  eloquence  less  aptly  endowed  could  have  done.  He 
could  send  his  lightest  word  thrilling  to  the  extreme  of 
the  vast  concourse  of  people  whom  he  desired  to  move. 
He  swayed  them  with  the  magic  of  an  absolute  control. 
He  understood  all  the  moods  of  his  people;  to  address 
himself  to  them  came  naturally  to  him.  He  made  them 
roar  with  laughter;  he  made  them  weep;  he  made  them 
thrill  with  indignation.  As  the  shadow  runs  over  a  field, 
so  the  impression  of  his  varying  eloquence  ran  over  the 
assemblage.  He  commanded  the  emotions  of  his  hearers 
as  a  consummate  conductor  sways  the  energies  of  his  or- 
chestra. Every  allusion  told.  When,  in  one  of  the  meet- 
ings held  in  his  native  Kerry,  he  turned  solemnly  round 
and  appealed  to  "  yonder  blue  mountains  where  you  and  I 
were  cradled ;"  or  in  sight  of  the  objects  he  described  he 
apostrophized  Ireland  as  the  "land  of  the  green  valley 
and  the  rushing  river" — an  admirably  characteristic  and 
complete  description ;  or  recalled  some  historical  associa- 
tion connected  with  the  scene  he  surveyed — each  was  some 
special  appeal  to  the  instant  feelings  of  his  peculiar  audi- 
ence. Sometimes  he  indulged  in  the  grossest  and  what 
ought  to  have  been  the  most  ridiculous  flattery  of  his  hear- 
ers— flattery  which  would  have  offended  and  disgusted  the 
dullest  English  audience.  But  the  Irish  peasant,  with  all 
his  keen  sense  of  the  ridiculous  in  others,  is  singularly 
open  to  the  influence  of  any  appeal  to  his  own  vanity. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  the  "eternal-womanly"  in  the 
Celtic  nature,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  overflatter  one  of  the 
race.  Doubtless  O'Connell  knew  this,  and  acted  purposely 
on  it;  and  this  was  a  peculiarity  of  his  political  conduct 
which  it  would  be  hard  indeed  to  commend  or  even  to  de- 
fend.    But,  in  truth,  he  adopted  in  his  agitation  the  tactics 


222  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

he  had  employed  at  the  bar.  "A  good  speech  is  a  good 
thing,"  he  used  to  say;  "but  the  verdict  is  the  thing." 
His  flattery  of  his  hearers  was  not  grosser  than  his  abuse 
of  all  those  whom  they  did  not  like.  His  dispraise  often 
had  absolutely  no  meaning  in  it.  There  was  no  sense 
whatever  in  calling  the  Duke  of  Wellington  "  a  stunted 
corporal ;"  one  might  as  well  have  called  Mont  Blanc  a 
mole-hill.  Nobody  could  have  shown  more  clearly  than 
O'Connell  did  that  he  did  not  believe  the  Times  to  be  "  an 
obscure  rag."  It  would  have  been  as  humorous  and  as 
truthful  to  say  that  there  was  no  such  paper  as  the  Times. 
But  these  absurdities  made  an  ignorant  audience  laugh  for 
the  moment,  and  O'Connell  had  gained  the  only  point  he 
just  then  wanted  to  carry.  He  would  probably  have  an- 
swered any  one  who  remonstrated  with  him  on  the  disin- 
genuousness  of  such  sayings  as  Mrs.  Thrale  says  Burke 
once  answered  her  when  she  taxed  him  with  a  want  of 
literal  accuracy,  by  quoting,  "  Odds  life,  must  one  swear 
to  the  truth  of  a  song?"  But  this  recklessness  of  epithet 
and  description  did  much  to  make  O'Connell  distrusted 
and  disliked  in  England,  where,  in  whatever  heat  of  polit- 
ical controversy,  words  are  supposed  to  be  the  expressions 
of  some  manner  of  genuine  sentiment.  Of  course  many 
of  O'Connell's  abusive  epithets  were  not  only  full  of  hu- 
mor, but  did,  to  some  extent,  fairly  represent  the  weak- 
nesses at  least  of  those  against  whom  they  were  directed. 
Some  of  his  historical  allusions  were  of  a  more  mischievous 
nature  than  any  mere  personalities  could  have  been. 
"Peel  and  Wellington,"  he  said  at  Kilkenny,  "may  be 
second  Cromwells;  they  may  get  Cromwell's  blunted 
truncheon,  and  they  may — oh,  sacred  heavens! — enact  on 
the  fair  occupants  of  that  gallery"  (pointing  to  the  ladies' 
gallery)  "  the  murder  of  the  Wexford  women.  Let  it  not 
be  supposed  that  when  I  made  that  appeal  to  the  ladies  it 
was  but  a  flight  of  my  imagination.  No!  when  Cromwell 
entered  the  town  of  Wexford  by  treachery,  three  hundred 
ladies,  the  beauty  and  loveliness  of  Wexford,  the  young 


The  Repeal  Year.  22} 

and  the  old,  the  maid  and  the  matron,  were  collected 
round  the  Cross  of  Christ;  they  prayed  to  Heaven  for 
mercy,  and  I  hope  they  found  it ;  they  prayed  to  the  Eng. 
lish  for  humanity,  and  Cromwell  slaughtered  them.  I  tell 
you  this:  three  hundred  women,  the  grace  and  beauty  and 
virtue  of  Wexford,  were  slaughtered  by  the  English  ruf- 
fians— sacred  heaven!"  He  went  on  then  to  assure  his 
hearers  that  "  the  ruffianly  Saxon  paper,  the  Times,  in  the 
number  received  by  me  to-day,  presumes  to  threaten  us 
again  with  such  a  scene."  One  would  like  to  see  the  copy 
of  the  Times  which  contained  such  a  threat,  or,  indeed, 
any  words  that  could  be  tortured  into  a  semblance  of  any 
such  hideous  meaning.  But  the  great  agitator,  when  he 
found  that  he  had  excited  enough  the  horror  of  his  audi- 
ence, proceeded  to  reassure  them  by  the  means  of  all  others 
most  objectionable  and  dangerous  at  such  a  time.  "  I  am 
not  imaginative,"  he  said,  "when  I  talk  of  the  possibility 
of  such  scenes  anew;  but  yet  I  assert  that  there  is  no 
danger  to  our  women  now,  for  the  men  of  Ireland  would 
die  to  the  last  in  their  defence."  Here  the  whole  meeting 
broke  into  a  storm  of  impassioned  cheering.  "Ay,"  the 
orator  exclaimed,  when  the  storm  found  a  momentary 
hush,  "we  were  a  paltry  remnant  then;  we  are  millions 
now."  At  Mullaghmast,  O'Connell  made  an  impassioned 
allusion  to  the  massacre  of  Irish  chieftains,  said  to  have 
taken  place  on  that  very  spot  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth. "  Three  hundred  and  ninety  Irish  chiefs  perished 
here!  They  came,  confiding  in  Saxon  honor,  relying  on 
the  protection  of  the  Queen,  to  a  friendly  conference.  In 
the  midst  of  revelry,  in  the  cheerful  light  of  the  banquet- 
house,  they  were  surrounded  and  butchered.  None  re- 
turned save  one.  Their  wives  were  widows,  their  chil- 
dren fatherless.  In  their  homesteads  was  heard  the  shrill 
shriek  of  despair — the  cry  of  bitter  agony.  Oh,  Saxon 
cruelty,  how  it  cheers  my  heart  to  think  you  dare  not  at- 
tempt such  a  deed  again!"  It  is  not  necessary  to  point 
out  what  the  effect  of  such  descriptions  and  such  allusions 


224  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

must  have  been  upon  an  excitable  and  an  ignorant  peasant 
audience — on  men  who  were  ready  to  believe  in  all  sin- 
cerity that  England  only  wanted  the  opportunity  to  re-en- 
act, in  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  the  scenes  of  Eliza- 
beth's or  Cromwell's  day. 

The  late  Lord  Lytton  has  given,  in  his  poem,  "  St. 
Stephens,"  a  picturesque  description  of  one  of  these  meet- 
ings, and  of  the  effect  produced  upon  himself  by  O'Con- 
nell's  eloquence.  "Once  to  my  sight,"  he  says,  "the 
giant  thus  was  given ;  walled  by  wide  air  and  roofed  by 
boundless  heaven."  He  describes  "the  human  ocean" 
lying  spread  out  at  the  giant's  feet;  its  "wave  on  wave" 
flowing  "into  space  away."  Not  unnaturally,  Lord  Lyt- 
ton thought "  no  clarion  could  have  sent  its  sound  even  to 
the  centre"  of  that  crowd. 

"And  as  I  thought,  rose  the  sonorous  swell 
As  from  some  church  tower  swings  the  silvery  bell ; 
Aloft  and  clear  from  airy  tide  to  tide, 
It  glided  easy  as  a  bird  may  glide. 
To  the  last  verge  of  that  vast  audience  sent, 
It  played  with  each  wild  passion  as  it  went ; 
Now  stirred  the  uproar — now  the  murmur  stilled, 
And  sobs  or  laughter  answered  as  it  willed. 
Then  did  I  know  what  spells  of  infinite  choice 
To  rouse  or  lull  has  the  sweet  human  voice. 
Then  did  I  learn  to  seize  the  sudden  clew 
To  the  grand  troublous  life  antique — to  view, 
Under  the  rock-stand  of  Demosthenes, 
Unstable  Athens  heave  her  noisy  seas. " 

The  crowds  who  attended  the  monster  meetings  came 
in  a  sort  of  military  order  and  with  a  certain  parade  of 
military  discipline.  At  the  meeting  held  on  the  Hill  of 
Tara,  where  O'Connell  stood  beside  the  stone  said  to  have 
been  used  for  the  coronation  of  the  ancient  monarchs  of 
Ireland,  it  is  declared,  on  the  authority  of  careful  and  un- 
sympathetic witnesses,  that  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  peo- 
ple must  have  been  present.  The  Government  naturally 
felt  that  there  was  a  very  considerable  danger  in  the  mass- 


The  Repeal  Year.  22^ 

ing  together  of  sneh  vast  crowds  of  men  in  something  like 
military  array  and  under  the  absolute  leadership  of  one 
man,  who  openly  avowed  that  he  had  called  them  together 
to  show  England  what  was  the  strength  her  statesmen 
would  have  to  fear  if  they  continued  to  deny  Repeal  to  his 
demand.     It  is  certain  now  that  O'Connell  did  not  at  any 
time  mean  to  employ  force  for  the  attainment  of  his  ends. 
But  it  is  equally  certain  that  he  wished  the  English  Gov- 
ernment to  see  that  he  had  the  command  of  an  immense 
number  of  men,   and  probably  even   to  believe  that  he 
would,  if  needs  were,  hurl  them  in  rebellion  upon  Eng- 
land if  ever  she  should  be  embarrassed  with  a  foreign  war. 
It  is  certain,  too,  that  many  of  O'Connell's  most  ardent 
admirers,   especially  among  the  young  men,   were  fully 
convinced  that  some  day  or  other  their  leader  would  call 
on  them  to  fight,  and  were  much  disappointed  when  they 
found  that  he  had  no  such  intention.     The  Government 
at  last  resolved  to  interfere.     A  meeting  was  announced 
to   be   held  at  Clontarf   on   Sunday,    October  8th,    1843. 
Clontarf  is  near  Dublin,  and  is  famous  in  Irish  history  as 
the  scene  of  a  great  victory  of  the  Irish  over  their  Danish 
invaders.     It  was  intended  that  this  meeting  should  sur- 
pass in  numbers  and  in  earnestness  the  assemblage  at  Tara. 
On  the  very  day  before  the  8th  the  Lord-Lieutenant  issued 
a  proclamation  prohibiting  the  meeting  as  "  calculated  to 
excite   reasonable   and   well-grounded   apprehension,"  in 
that  its  object  was  "  to  accomplish  alterations  in  the  laws 
and  constitution  of  the  realm  by  intimidation  and  the  de- 
monstration of  physical  force."     O'Connell's  power  over 
the  people  was  never  shown  more  effectively  than  in  the 
control  which  at  that  critical  moment  he  was  still  able  to 
exercise.      The   populations  were    already  coming   in    to 
Clontarf  in  streams  from  all  the  country  round  when  the 
proclamation  of  the  Lord-Lieutenant  was  issued.    No  doubt 
the  Irish  Government  ran  a  terrible  risk  when  they  delayed 
so  long  the  issue  of  their  proclamation.     With  the  people 
already  assembling  in  such  masses,  the  risk  of  a  collision 
Vol.  I. — 15 


226  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

with  the  police  and  the  soldiery,  and  of  a  consequent  mas- 
sacre, is  something  still  shocking  to  contemplate.  It  is 
not  surprising,  perhaps,  if  O'Connell  and  many  of  his  fol- 
lowers made  it  a  charge  against  the  Government  that  they 
intended  to  bring  about  such  a  collision  in  order  to  make 
an  example  of  some  of  the  Repealers,  and  thus  strike  ter- 
ror through  the  country.  Some  sort  of  collision  would  al- 
most undoubtedly  have  occurred  but  for  the  promptitude 
of  O'Connell  himself.  He  at  once  issued  a  proclamation 
of  his  own,  to  which  the  popiilations  were  likely  to  pay  far 
more  attention  than  they  would  to  anything  coming  from 
Dublin  Castle.  O'Connell  declared  that  the  orders  of  the 
Lord-Lieutenant  must  be  obeyed ;  that  the  meeting  must 
not  take  place ;  and  that  the  people  must  return  to  their 
homes.  The  "uncrowned  king,"  as  some  of  his  admirers 
loved  to  call  him,  was  obeyed,  and  no  meeting  was  held. 

From  that  moment,  however,  the  great  power  of  the 
Repeal  agitation  was  gone.  The  Government  had  accom- 
plished far  more  by  their  proclamation  than  they  could 
possibly  have  imagined  at  the  time.  They  had,  without 
knowing  it,  compelled  O'Connell  to  show  his  hand.  It 
was  now  made  clear  that  he  did  not  intend  to  have  resort 
to  force.  From  that  hour  there  was  virtually  a  schism 
between  the  elder  Repealers  and  the  younger.  The  young 
and  fiery  followers  of  the  great  agitator  lost  all  faith  in 
him.  It  would  in  any  case  have  been  impossible  to  main- 
tain for  any  very  long  time  the  state  of  national  tension  in 
which  Ireland  had  been  kept.  It  must  soon  come  either 
to  a  climax  or  to  an  anti-climax.  It  came  to  an  anti-climax. 
All  the  imposing  demonstrations  of  physical  strength  lost 
their  value  when  it  was  made  positively  known  that  they 
were  only  demonstrations,  and  that  nothing  was  ever  to 
come  of  them.  The  eye  of  an  attentive  foreigner  was  then 
fixed  on  Ireland  and  on  O'Connell ;  the  eye  of  one  destined 
to  play  a  part  in  the  political  history  of  our  time  which 
none  other  has  surpassed.  Count  Cavour  had  not  long  re- 
turned to  his  own  country  from  a  visit  made  with  the  ex- 


The  Repeal  Year.  22^ 

press  purpose  of  studying  the  politics  and  the  general  con- 
dition of  England  and  Ireland.  He  wrote  to  a  friend  about 
the  crisis  then  passing  in  Ireland.  "  When  one  is  at  a  dis- 
tance," he  said,  "from  the  theatre  of  events,  it  is  easy  to 
make  prophecies  which  have  already  been  contradicted  by 
facts.  But  according  to  my  view  O'Connell's  fate  is  sealed. 
On  the  first  vigorous  demonstration  of  his  opponents  he 
has  drawn  back ;  from  that  moment  he  has  ceased  to  be 
dangerous."  Cavour  was  perfectly  right.  It  was  never 
again  possible  to  bring  the  Irish  people  up  to  the  pitch  of 
enthusiasm  which  O'Connell  had  wrought  them  to  before 
the  suppression  of  the  Clontarf  meeting;  and  before  long 
the  Irish  national  movement  had  split  in  two. 

The  Government  at  once  proceeded  to  the  prosecution  of 
O'Connell  and  some  of  his  principal  associates.  Daniel 
O'Connell  himself,  his  son  John,  the  late  Sir  John  Gray, 
and  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  were  the  most  conspicuous 
of  those  against  whom  the  prosecution  was  directed.  They 
were  charged  with  conspiring  to  raise  and  excite  disaffec- 
tion among  her  Majesty's  subjects,  to  excite  them  to  hatred 
and  contempt  of  the  Government  and  Constitution  of  the 
realm.  The  trial  was,  in  many  ways,  a  singularly  unfor- 
tunate proceeding.  The  Government  prosecutor  objected 
to  all  the  Catholics  whose  names  were  called  as  jurors. 
An  error  of  the  sheriff's  in  the  construction  of  the  jury- 
lists  had  already  reduced  by  a  considerable  number  the  roll 
of  Catholics  entitled  to  serve  on  juries.  It  therefore  hap- 
pened that  the  greatest  of  Irish  Catholics,  the  representa- 
tive Catholic  of  his  day,  the  principal  agent  in  the  work 
of  carrying  Catholic  Emancipation,  was  tried  by  a  jury 
composed  exclusively  of  Protestants.  It  has  only  to  be 
added  that  this  was  done  in  the  metropolis  of  a  country 
essentially  Catholic ;  a  country  five-sixths  of  whose  people 
were  Catholics;  and  on  a  question  affecting  indirectly,  if 
not  directly,  the  whole  position  and  claims  of  Catholics. 
The  trial  was  long.  O'Connell  defended  himself;  and  his 
speech  was  universally  regarded  as  wanting  the  power 


228  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

that  had  made  his  defence  of  others  so  effective  in  former 
days.  It  was  for  the  most  part  a  sober  and  somewhat 
heavy  argument  to  prove  that  Ireland  had  lost  instead  of 
gained  by  her  union  with  England.  The  jury  found 
O'Connell  guilty,  along  with  most  of  his  associates,  and 
he  was  sentenced  to  twelve  months'  imprisonment  and  a 
fine  of  ;^2ooo.  The  others  received  lighter  sentences. 
O'Connell  appealed  to  the  House  of  Lords  against  the 
sentence.  In  the  mean  time  he  issued  a  proclamation  to 
the  Irish  people  commanding  them  to  keep  perfectly  quiet 
and  not  to  commit  any  offence  against  the  law.  "  Every 
man,"  said  one  of  his  proclamations,  "  who  is  guilty  of  the 
slightest  breach  of  the  peace  is  an  enemy  of  me  and  of 
Ireland."  The  Irish  people  took  him  at  his  word,  and  re- 
mained perfectly  quiet. 

O'Connell  and  his  principal  associates  were  committed 
to  Richmond  Prison,  in  Dublin.  The  trial  had  been  de- 
layed in  various  ways,  and  the  sentence  was  not  pronounced 
until  May  24th,  1844.  The  appeal  to  the  House  of  Lords 
— we  may  pass  over  intermediate  stages  of  procedure — 
was  heard  in  the  following  September.  Five  law  lords 
were  present.  The  Lord  Chancellor  (Lord  Lyndhurst) 
and  Lord  Brougham  were  of  opinion  that  the  sentence  of 
the  court  below  should  be  affirmed.  Lord  Denman,  Lord 
Cottenham,  and  Lord  Campbell  were  of  the  opposite  opin- 
ion. Lord  Denman,  in  particular,  condemned  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  jury-lists  had  been  prepared.  Some  of 
his  words  on  the  occasion  became  memorable,  and  passed 
into  a  sort  of  proverbial  expression.  Such  practices,  he 
said,  would  make  of  the  law  "  a  mockery,  a  delusion,  and 
a  snare. "  A  strange  and  memorable  scene  followed.  The 
constitution  of  the  House  of  Lords  then,  and  for  a  long 
time  after,  made  no  difference  between  law  lords  and 
others  in  voting  on  a  question  of  appeal.  As  a  matter  of 
practice  and  of  fairness  the  lay  peers  hardly  ever  interfered 
in  the  voting  on  an  appeal.  But  they  had  an  undoubted 
right  to  do  so;  and  it  is  even  certain  that  in  one  or  two 


The  Repeal  Year.  229 

peculiar  cases  they  had  exercised  the  right.  If  the  lay 
lords  were  to  vote  in  this  instance,  the  fate  of  O'Connell 
and  his  companions  could  not  be  doubtful.  O'Connell  had 
always  been  the  bitter  enemy  of  the  House  of  Lords.  He 
had  vehemently  denounced  its  authority,  its  practices,  and 
its  leading  members.  Nor,  if  the  lay  peers  had  voted  and 
confirmed  the  judgment  of  the  court  below,  could  it  have 
been  positively  said  that  an  injustice  was  done  by  their 
interference.  The  majority  of  the  judges  on  the  writ  of 
error  had  approved  the  judgment  of  the  court  below.  In 
the  House  of  Lords  itself  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  Lord 
Brougham  were  of  opinion  that  the  judgment  ought  to  be 
sustained.  There  would,  therefore,  have  been  some  ground 
for  maintaining  that  the  substantial  justice  of  the  case  had 
been  met  by  the  action  of  the  lay  peers.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  would  have  afforded  a  ground  for  a  positive  out- 
cry in  Ireland  if  a  question  purely  of  law  had  been  decided 
by  the  votes  of  lay  peers  against  their  bitter  enemy.  One 
peer.  Lord  Wharncliffe,  made  a  timely  appeal  to  the  better 
judgment  and  feeling  of  his  brethren.  He  urged  them 
not  to  take  a  course  which  might  allow  any  one  to  say  that 
political  or  personal  feeling  had  prevailed  in  a  judicial 
decision  of  the  House  of  Lords.  The  appeal  had  its  effect. 
A  moment  before  one  lay  peer  at  least  had  openly  declared 
that  he  would  insist  on  his  right  to  vote.  When  the  Lord 
Chancellor  was  about  to  put  the  question  in  the  first  in- 
stance, to  ascertain  in  the  usual  way  whether  a  division 
would  be  necessary,  several  lay  peers  seemed  as  if  they 
were  determined  to  vote.  But  the  appeal  of  Lord  Wharn- 
cliffe settled  the  matter.  All  the  lay  peers  at  once  witli- 
drew,  and  left  the  matter  according  to  the  usual  course 
in  the  hands  of  the  law  lords.  The  majority  of  these 
being  against  the  judgment  of  the  court  below,  it  was 
accordingly  reversed,  and  O'Connell  and  his  associates 
were  set  at  liberty.  The  propriety  of  a  lay  peer  voting 
on  a  question  of  judicial  appeal  was  never  raised  again 
so  long   as  the   appellate  jurisdiction   of   the   House   of 


230  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

Lords  was  still  exercised  in   the  old   and  now  obsolete 
fashion. 

Nothing  could  well  have  been  more  satisfactory  and 
more  fortunate  in  its  results  than  the  conduct  of  the  House 
of  Lords.  The  effect  upon  the  mind  of  the  Irish  people 
would  have  been  deplorable  if  it  had  been  seen  that  O'Con- 
nell  was  convicted  by  a  jury  on  which  there  were  no 
Roman  Catholics,  and  that  the  sentence  was  confirmed 
not  by  a  judicial  but  by  a  strictly  political  vote  of  the 
House  of  Lords.  As  it  was,  the  influence  of  the  decision 
which  proved  that  even  in  the  assembly  most  bitterly  de- 
nounced by  O'Connell  he  could  receive  fair  play,  was  in 
the  highest  degree  satisfactory.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that 
it  did  something  to  weaken  the  force  of  O'Connell's  own 
denunciations  of  Saxon  treachery  and  wrong-doing.  The 
influence  of  O'Connell  was  never  the  same  after  the  trial. 
Many  causes  combined  to  bring  about  this  result.  Most 
writers  ascribe  it,  above  all,  to  the  trial  itself,  and  the 
evidence  it  afforded  that  the  English  Government  were 
strong  enough  to  prosecute  and  punish  even  O'Connell  if 
he  provoked  them  too  far.  It  is  somewhat  surprising  to 
find  intelligent  men  like  Mr.  Green,  the  author  of  "  A  Short 
History  of  the  English  People,"  countenancing  such  a  be- 
lief. If  the  House  of  Lords  had,  by  the  votes  of  the  lay 
peers,  confirmed  the  sentence  on  O'Connell,  he  would 
have  come  out  of  his  prison  at  the  expiration  of  his  period 
of  sentence  more  popular  and  more  powerful  than  ever. 
Had  his  strength  and  faculty  of  agitation  lasted,  he  might 
have  agitated  thenceforth  with  more  effect  than  ever.  If 
the  Clontarf  meeting  had  not  disclosed  to  a  large  section 
of  his  followers  that  his  policy,  after  all,  was  only  to  be 
one  of  talk,  he  might  have  come  out  of  prison  just  the  man 
he  had  been,  the  leader  of  all  classes  of  Catholics  and  Na- 
tionalists. But  the  real  blow  given  to  O'Connell's  popu- 
larity was  given  by  O'Connell  himself.  The  moment  it 
was  made  clear  that  nothing  was  to  be  done  but  agitate, 
and  that  all  the  monster  meetings,  the  crowds  and  banners 


The  Repeal  Year.  231 

and  bands  of  music,  the  marshalling  and  marching  and 
reviewing,  meant  nothing  more  than  Father  Mathew's 
temperance  meetings  meant — that  moment  all  the  youth 
of  the  movement  fell  off  from  O'Connell.  The  young 
men  were  very  silly,  as  after-events  proved.  O'Connell 
was  far  more  wise,  and  had  an  infinitely  better  estimate 
of  the  strength  of  England  than  they  had.  But  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  young  men  were  disgusted  with  the  kind  of 
gigantic  sham  which  the  great  agitator  seemed  to  have 
been  conducting  for  so  long  a  time.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  to  keep  up  forever  such  an  excitement  as  that 
which  got  together  the  monster  meetings.  Such  heat  can- 
not be  brought  up  to  the  burning-point  and  kept  there  at 
will.  A  reaction  was  inevitable.  O'Connell  was  getting 
old,  and  had  lived  a  life  of  work  and  wear-and-tear  enough 
to  break  down  even  his  constitution  of  iron.  He  had  kept 
a  great  part  of  his  own  followers  in  heart,  as  he  had  kept 
the  Government  in  alarm,  by  leaving  it  doubtful  whether 
he  would  not,  in  the  end,  make  an  appeal  to  the  reserve  of 
physical  force  which  he  so  often  boasted  of  having  at  his 
back.  When  the  whole  secret  was  out,  he  ceased  to  be  an 
object  of  fear  to  the  one,  and  of  enthusiasm  to  the  other. 
It  was  neither  the  Lord-Lieutenant's  proclamation  nor  the 
prosecution  by  the  Government  that  impaired  the  influence 
of  O'Connell.  It  was  O'Connell's  own  proclamation,  de- 
claring for  submission  to  the  law,  that  dethroned  him. 
From  that  moment  the  political  monarch  had  to  dispute 
with  rebels  for  his  crown;  and  the  crown  fell  off  in  the 
struggle,  like  that  which  Uhland  tells  of  in  the  pretty 
poem. 

For  the  Clontarf  meeting  had  been  the  climax.  There 
was  all  manner  of  national  rejoicing  when  the  decision  of 
the  House  of  Lords  set  O'Connell  and  his  fellow-prisoners 
free.  There  were  illuminations  and  banquets  and  meet- 
ings and  triumphal  processions,  renewed  declarations  of 
allegiance  to  the  great  leader,  and  renewed  protestations 
on  his  part  that  Repeal  was  coming.     But  his  reign  was 


2)2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

over.  His  death  may  as  well  be  recorded  here  as  later. 
His  health  broke  down ;  and  the  disputes  in  which  he  be- 
came engaged  with  the  Young  Irelanders,  dividing  his 
party  into  two  hostile  camps,  were  a  grievous  burden  to 
him.  In  Lord  Beaconsfield's  Life  of  Lord  George  Ben- 
tinck,  a  very  touching  description  is  given  of  the  last 
speech  made  by  O'Connell  in  Parliament.  It  was  on 
April  3d,  1846:  "His  appearance,"  says  Mr.  Disraeli, 
"was  of  great  debility,  and  the  tones  of  his  voice  were 
very  still.  His  words,  indeed,  only  reached  those  who 
were  immediately  around  him,  and  the  ministers  sitting 
on  the  other  side  of  the  green  table,  and  listening  with 
that  interest  and  respectful  attention  which  became  the 
occasion."  O'Connell  spoke  for  nearly  two  hours.  "It 
was  a  strange  and  touching  spectacle  to  those  who  remem- 
bered the  form  of  colossal  energy  and  the  clear  and  thrill- 
ing tones  that  had  once  startled,  disturbed,  and  controlled 
senates.  ,  .  .  To  the  House,  generally,  it  was  a  perform- 
ance in  dumb  show :  a  feeble  old  man  muttering  before  a 
table;  but  respect  for  the  great  Parliamentary  personage 
kept  all  as  orderly  as  if  the  fortunes  of  a  party  hung  upon 
his  rhetoric ;  and  though  not  an  accent  reached  the  gallery, 
means  were  taken  that  next  morning  the  country  should 
not  lose  the  last,  and  not  the  least  interesting,  of  the 
speeches  of  one  who  had  so  long  occupied  and  agitated  the 
mind  of  nations." 

O'Connell  became  seized  with  a  profound  melancholy. 
Only  one  desire  seemed  left  to  him,  the  desire  to  close  his 
stormy  career  in  Rome.  The  Eternal  City  is  the  capital, 
the  shrine,  the  Mecca  of  the  Church  to  which  O'Connell 
was  undoubtedly  devoted  with  all  his  heart.  He  longed 
to  lie  down  in  the  shadow  of  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  and 
rest  there,  and  there  die.  His  youth  had  been  wild  in 
more  ways  than  one,  and  he  had  long  been  under  the  in- 
fluence of  a  profound  penitence.  He  had  killed  a  man  in 
a  duel,  and  was  through  all  his  after-life  haunted  by  regret 
for  the  deed,  although  it  was  really  forced  on  him,  and  he 


The  Repeal  Year.  233 

had  acted  only  as  any  other  man  of  his  time  would  have 
acted  in  such  conditions.  But  now,  in  his  old  and  sinking 
days,  all  the  errors  of  his  youth  and  his  strong  manhood 
came  back  upon  him,  and  he  longed  to  steep  the  painful 
memories  in  the  sacred  influences  of  Rome.  He  hurried 
to  Ital)'  at  a  time  when  the  prospect  of  the  famine  darken- 
ing down  upon  his  country  cast  an  additional  shadow  across 
his  outward  path.  He  reached  Genoa,  and  he  went  no  far- 
ther. His  strength  wholly  failed  him  there,  and  he  died, 
still  far  from  Rome,  on  May  15th,  1847.  The  close  of  his 
career  was  a  mournful  collapse;  it  was  like  the  sudden 
crumbling  in  of  some  stately  and  commanding  tower. 
The  other  day,  it  seemed,  he  filled  a  space  of  almost  un- 
equalled breadth  and  height  in  the  political  landscape;  and 
now  he  is  already  gone.  "Even  with  a  thought  the  rack 
dislimbs,  and  makes  it  indistinct,  as  water  is  in  water." 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

peel's  administration. 

Some  important  steps  in  the  progress  of  what  may  be 
described  as  social  legislation  are  part  of  the  history  of 
Peel's  Government.  The  Act  of  Parliament  which  pro- 
hibited absolutely  the  employment  of  women  and  girls  in 
mines  and  collieries  was  rendered  unavoidable  by  the  fear- 
ful exposures  made  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  com- 
mission appointed  to  inquire  into  the  whole  subject.  This 
commission  was  appointed  on  the  motion  of  the  then  Lord 
Ashley,  since  better  known  as  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  a 
man  who  during  the  whole  of  a  long  career  has  always 
devoted  himself — sometimes  wisely  and  successfully,  some- 
times indiscreetly  and  to  little  purpose,  always  with  dis- 
interested and  benevolent  intention — to  the  tasl:  of  bright- 
ening the  lives  and  lightening  the  burdens  of  the  work- 
ing-classes and  the  poor.  The  commission  found  many 
hideous  evils  arising  from  the  employment  of  women  and 
girls  underground,  and  Lord  Ashley  made  such  effective 
use  of  their  disclosures  that  he  encountered  very  little  op- 
position when  he  came  to  propose  restrictive  legislation. 
In  some  of  the  coal-mines  women  were  literally  employed 
as  beasts  of  burden.  Where  the  seam  of  coal  was  too 
narrow  to  allow  them  to  stand  upright,  they  had  to  crawl 
back  and  forward  on  all-fours  for  fourteen  or  sixteen  hours 
a  day,  dragging  the  trucks  laden  with  coals.  The  trucks 
were  generally  fastened  to  a  chain  which  passed  between 
the  legs  of  the  unfortunate  women,  and  was  then  connected 
with  a  belt  which  was  strapped  round  their  naked  waists. 
Their  only  clothing  often  consisted  of  an  old  pair  of  trou- 
sers made  of  sacking;  and  they  were  uncovered  from  the 


Peel's  Administration.  235 

waist  up — uncovered,  that  is  to  say,  except  for  the  grime 
and  filth  that  collected  and  clotted  around  them.  All 
manner  of  hideous  diseases  were  generated  in  these  un- 
sexed  bodies.  Unsexed  almost  literally  some  of  them  be- 
came ;  for  their  chests  were  often  hard  and  flat  as  those  of 
men;  and  not  a  few  of  them  lost  all  reproductive  power — 
a  happy  condition,  truly,  under  the  circumstances,  where 
women  who  bore  children  only  went  up  to  the  higher  air 
for  a  week  during  their  confinement,  and  were  then  Vjack 
at  their  work  again.  It  would  be  superfluous  to  say  that 
the  immorality  engendered  by  such  a  state  of  things  was 
in  exact  keeping  with  the  other  evils  which  it  brought 
about.  Lord  Ashley  had  the  happiness  and  the  honor  of 
putting  a  stop  to  this  infamous  sort  of  labor  forever  by  the 
Act  of  1842,  which  declared  that,  after  a  certain  limited 
period,  no  woman  or  girl  whatever  should  be  employed  in 
mines  and  collieries. 

Lord  Ashley  was  less  completely  successful  in  his  en- 
deavor to  secure  a  ten  hours'  limitation  for  the  daily  labor 
of  women  and  young  persons  in  factories.  By  a  vigorous 
annual  agitation  on  the  general  subject  of  factory  labor, 
in  which  Lord  Ashley  had  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Mr. 
Michael  Thomas  Sadler,  he  brought  the  Government  up 
to  the  point  of  undertaking  legislation  on  the  subject. 
They  first  introduced  a  bill  which  combined  a  limitation 
of  the  labor  of  children  in  factories  with  a  plan  for  com- 
pulsory education  among  the  children.  The  educational 
clauses  of  the  bill  had  to  be  abandoned  in  consequence  of 
a  somewhat  narrow-minded  opposition  among  the  Dissent- 
ers, who  feared  that  too  much  advantage  was  given  to  the 
Church.  Afterward  the  Government  brought  in  another 
bill,  which  became,  in  the  end,  the  Factories  Act  of  1844. 
It  was  during  the  passing  of  this  measure  that  Lord  Ashley 
tried  unsuccessfully  to  introduce  his  ten  hours'  limit.  The 
bill  diminished  the  working  hours  of  children  under  thir- 
teen years  of  age,  and  fixed  them  at  six  and  a  half  hours 
each  day ;  extended  somewhat  the  time  during  which  they 


2^6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

were  to  be  under  daily  instruction,  and  did  a  good  many 
other  useful  and  wholesome  things.  The  principle  of  legis- 
lative interference  to  protect  youthful  workers  in  factories 
had  been  already  established  by  the  Act  of  1833,  and  Lord 
Ashley's  agitation  only  obtained  for  it  a  somewhat  ex- 
tended application.  It  has  since  that  time  again  and  again 
received  further  extension;  and  in  this  time,  as  in  the 
former,  there  is  a  constant  controversy  going  on  as  to 
whether  its  principles  ought  not  to  be  so  extended  as  to 
guard  in  almost  every  way  the  labor  of  adult  women,  and 
even  of  adult  men.  The  controversy  during  Lord  Ashley's 
agitation  was  always  warm  and  often  impassioned.  Many 
thoroughly  benevolent  men  and  women  could  not  bring 
themselves  to  believe  that  any  satisfactory  and  permanent 
results  could  come  of  a  legislative  interference  with  what 
might  be  called  the  freedom  of  contract  between  employers 
and  employed.  They  argued  that  it  was  idle  to  say  the 
interference  was  only  made  or  sought  in  the  case  of  women 
and  boys;  for  if  the  women  and  boys  stop  oif  working, 
they  pointed  out,  the  men  must  perforce  in  most  cases  stop 
off  working  too.  Some  of  the  public  men  afterward  most 
justly  popular  among  the  English  artisan  classes  were  op- 
posed to  the  measure  on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  heedless 
attempt  to  interfere  with  fixed  economic  laws.  It  was 
urged,  too,  and  with  much  semblance  of  justice,  that  the 
interference  of  the  State  for  the  protection  or  the  compul- 
sory education  of  children  in  factories  would  have  been 
much  better  employed,  and  was  far  more  loudly  called  for, 
in  the  case  of  the  children  employed  in  agricultural  labor. 
The  lot  of  a  factory  child,  it  was  contended,  is  infinitely 
better  in  most  respects  than  that  of  the  poor  little  creature 
who  is  employed  in  hallooing  at  the  crows  on  a  farm.  The 
mill-hand  is  well  cared  for,  well  paid,  well  able  to  care 
for  himself  and  his  wife  and  his  family,  it  was  argued ;  but 
what  of  the  miserable  Giles  Scroggins  of  Dorsetshire  or 
Somersetshire,  who  never  has  more  in  all  his  life  than  just 
enough  to  keep  body  and  soul  together;  and  for  whom,  at 


Peel's  Administration.  237 

the  close,  the  workhouse  is  the  only  haven  of  rest?  Why 
not  legislate  for  him — at  least  for  his  wife  and  children? 

Neither  point  requires  much  consideration  from  us  at 
present.  We  have  to  recognize  historical  facts;  and  it  is 
certain  that  this  country  has  made  up  its  mind  that  for  the 
present  and  for  a  long  time  to  come  Parliament  will  inter- 
fere in  whatever  way  seems  good  to  it  with  the  conditions 
on  which  labor  is  carried  on.  There  has  been,  indeed,  a 
very  marked  advance  or  retrogression,  whichever  men  may 
please  to  call  it,  in  public  opinion  since  the  ten  [^hours' 
agitation.  At  that  time  compulsory  education  and  the  prin- 
ciples of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Irish  Land  Act  would  have  seemed 
alike  impossible  to  most  persons  in  this  country.  The 
practical  mind  of  the  Englishman  carries  to  an  extreme 
the  dislike  and  contempt  for  what  the  French  call  les prin- 
ciples in  politics.  Therefore  we  oscillate  a  good  deal,  the 
pendulum  swinging  now  very  far  in  the  direction  of  non- 
interference with  individual  action,  and  now  still  farther 
in  the  direction  of  universal  interference  and  regulation — 
what  was  once  humorously  described  as  grandmotherly 
legislation.  With  our  recent  experiences  we  can  only  be 
surprised  that  a  few  years  ago  there  was  such  a  repugnance 
to  the  modest  amount  of  interference  with  individual  rights 
which  Lord  Ashley's  extremest  proposals  would  have 
sought  to  introduce.  As  regards  the  other  point,  it  is 
certain  that  Parliament  will  at  one  time  or  another  do  for 
the  children  in  the  fields  something  very  like  that  which 
it  has  done  for  the  children  in  the  factories.  It  is  enough 
for  us  to  know  that  practically  the  factory  legislation  has 
worked  very  well;  and  that  the  non-interference  in  the 
fields  is  a  far  heavier  responsibility  on  the  conscience  of 
Parliament  than  interference  in  the  factories. 

Many  other  things  done  by  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Govern- 
ment aroused  bitter  controversy  and  agitation.  In  one  or 
two  remarkable  instances  the  ministerial  policy  went  near 
to  producing  that  discord  in  the  Conservative  party  which 
we  shall  presently  see  break  out  into  passion  and  schism 


238  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

when  Peel  came  to  deal  with  the  Corn-laws.  There  was, 
for  example,  the  grant  to  the  Roman  Catholic  College  of 
Maynooth,  a  college  for  the  education  specially  of  young 
men  who  sought  to  enter  the  ranks  of  the  priesthood.  The 
grant  was  not  a  new  thing.  -  Since  before  the  Act  of  Union 
a  grant  had  been  made  for  the  college.  The  Government 
of  Sir  Robert  Peel  only  proposed  to  make  that  which  was 
insufficient  sufficient ;  to  enable  the  college  to  be  kept  in 
repair,  and  to  accomplish  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
founded.  As  Macaulay  put  it,  there  was  no  more  ques- 
tion of  principle  involved  than  there  would  be  in  the  sac- 
rifice of  a  pound  instead  of  a  pennyweight  on  some  particu- 
lar altar.  Yet  the  ministerial  proposition  called  up  a  very 
tempest  of  clamorous  bigotry  all  over  the  country.  What 
Macaulay  described  in  fierce  scorn  as  "  the  bray  of  Exeter 
Hall"  was  heard  resounding  every  day  and  night.  Peel 
carried  his  measure,  although  nearly  half  his  own  party  in 
the  House  of  Commons  voted  against  it  on  the  second 
reading.  The  whole  controversy  has  little  interest  now. 
Perhaps  it  will  be  found  to  live  in  the  memory  of  many 
persons,  chiefly  because  of  the  quarrel  it  caused  between 
Macaulay  and  his  Edinburgh  constituents,  and  of  the  an- 
nual motion  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  grant  which  was  so 
long  afterward  one  of  the  regular  bores  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  Many  of  us  can  well  remember  the  venerable 
form  of  the  late  Mr.  Spooner  as  year  after  year  he  ad- 
dressed an  apathetic,  scanty,  and  half-amused  audience, 
pottering  over  his  papers  by  the  light  of  two  candles  spe- 
cially placed  for  his  convenience  on  the  table  in  front  of  the 
Speaker,  and  endeavoring  in  vain  to  arouse  England  to 
serious  attention  on  the  subject  of  the  awful  fate  she  was 
preparing  for  herself  by  her  toleration  of  the  principles  of 
Rome.  The  Maynooth  grant  was  abolished,  indeed,  not 
long  after  Mr.  Spooner's  death;  but  the  manner  of  its 
abolition  would  have  given  him  less  comfort  even  than  its 
introduction.  It  was  abolished  when  Mr.  Gladstone's 
Government  abolished  the  State  Church  in  Ireland, 


Peel's  Administration.  239 

Another  of  Peel's  measures  which  aroused  much  clamor 
on  both  sides  was  that  for  the  establishment  of  what  were 
afterward  called  the  "  godless  colleges"  in  Ireland.  O'Con- 
nell  has  often  had  the  credit  of  applying  this  nickname  to 
the  new  colleges ;  but  it  was,  in  fact,  from  the  extremest 
of  all  no-popery  men,  Sir  Robert  Harry  Inglis,  that  the 
expression  came.  It  was,  indeed,  from  Sir  Robert  Inglis' 
side  that  the  first  note  sounded  of  opposition  to  the  scheme, 
although  O'Connell  afterward  took  it  vigorously  up,  and 
the  Pope  and  the  Irish  bishops  condemned  the  colleges. 

There  was  objection  within  the  ministry,  as  well  as 
without.  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  had  been  doing  admirable 
work,  first  as  Vice-president,  and  afterward  as  President, 
of  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  who  had  supported  the  Queen's 
colleges  scheme  by  voice  and  vote,  resigned  his  office  be- 
cause of  the  Maynooth  grant.  He  acted,  perhaps,  with  a 
too  sensitive  chivalry.  He  had  written  a  work,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  on  the  relation  of  Church  and  State,  and  he 
did  not  think  the  views  expressed  in  that  book  left  him  free 
to  co-operate  with  the  ministerial  measure.  Some  staid 
politicians  were  shocked;  many  more  smiled;  not  a  few 
sneered.  The  public  in  general  applauded  the  spirit  of 
disinterestedness  which  dictated  the  young  statesman's  act. 

The  proposal  of  the  Government  was  to  establish  in  Ire- 
land three  colleges — one  in  Cork,  the  second  in  Belfast,  and 
the  third  in  Galway — and  to  affiliate  these  to  a  new  uni- 
versity, to  be  called  the  "Queen's  University  in  Ireland." 
The  teaching  in  these  colleges  was  to  be  purely  secular. 
Nothing  could  be  more  admirable  than  the  intentions  of 
Peel  and  his  colleagues.  Nor  could  it  be  denied  that  there 
might  have  been  good  seeming  hope  for  a  plan  which  thus 
proposed  to  open  a  sort  of  neutral  ground  in  the  educational 
controversy.  But  from  both  sides  of  the  House  and  from 
the  extreme  party  in  each  Church  came  an  equally  fierce 
denunciation  of  the  proposal  to  separate  secular  from 
religious  education.  Nor,  surely,  could  the  claim  of  the 
Irish  Catholics  be  said  even  by  the  warmest  advocate  of 


240  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

undenominational  education  to  have  no  reason  on  its  side. 
The  small  minority  of  Protestants  in  Ireland  had  their  col- 
lege and  their  university  established  as  a  distinctively 
Protestant  institution.  Why  should  not  the  great  majority, 
who  were  Catholics,  ask  for  something  of  the  same  kind  for 
themselves?  Peel  carried  his  measure ;  but  the  controversy 
has  gone  on  ever  since,  and  we  have  yet  to  see  whether 
the  scheme  is  a  success  or  a  failure. 

One  small  instalment  of  justice  to  a  much-injured  and 
long-suffering  religious  body  was  accomplished  without 
any  trouble  by  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Government.  This  was 
the  bill  for  removing  the  test  by  which  Jews  were  excluded 
from  certain  municipal  offices.  A  Jew  might  be  high- 
sheriff  of  a  county,  or  sheriff  of  London,  but  with  an  in- 
consistency which  was  as  ridiculous  as  it  was  narrow- 
minded,  he  was  prevented  from  becoming  a  mayor,  an 
alderman,  or  even  a  member  of  the  Common  Council. 
The  oath  which  had  to  be  taken  included  the  words  "  on 
the  true  faith  of  a  Christian."  Lord  Lyndhurst,  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  introduced  a  measure  to  get  rid  of  this  absurd 
anomaly ;  and  the  House  of  Lords,  who  had  firmly  rejected 
similar  proposals  of  relief  before,  passed  it  without  any  dif- 
ficulty. It  was,  of  course,  passed  by  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, which  had  done  its  best  to  introduce  the  reform  in 
previous  sessions,  and  without  success. 

The  Bank  Charter  Act,  separating  the  issue  from  the 
banking  department  of  the  Bank  of  England,  limiting  the 
issue  of  notes  to  a  fixed  amount  of  securities,  and  requiring 
the  whole  of  the  further  circulation  to  be  on  a  basis  of 
bullion,  and  prohibiting  the  formation  of  any  new  banks  of 
issue,  is  a  characteristic  and  an  important  measure  of 
Peel's  Government.  To  Peel,  too,  we  owe  the  establish- 
ment of  the  income-tax  on  its  present  basis — a  doubtful 
boon.  The  copyright  question  was,  at  least,  advanced  a 
stage.  Railways  were  regulated.  The  railway  mania 
and  railway  panic  also  belong  to  this  active  period.  The 
country  went  wild  with  railway  speculations.     The  South 


Peel's  Administration.  241 

Sea  scheme  was  hardly  more  of  a  bubble,  or  hardly  burst 
more  suddenly  or  disastrously.  The  vulgar  and  flashy 
successes  of  one  or  two  lucky  adventurers  turned  the  heads 
of  the  whole  community.  For  a  time  it  seemed  to  be  a 
national  article  of  faith  that  the  capacity  of  the  country  to 
absorb  new  railway  schemes  and  make  them  profitable  was 
unlimited,  and  that  to  make  a  fortune  one  had  only  to  take 
shares  in  anything. 

An  odd  feature  of  the  time  was  the  outbreak  of  what 
were  called  the  Rebecca  riots  in  Wales.  These  riots  arose 
out  of  the  anger  and  impatience  of  the  people  at  the  great 
increase  of  toll-bars  and  tolls  on  the  public  roads.  Some 
one,  it  was  supposed,  had  hit  upon  a  passage  in  Genesis 
which  supplies  a  motto  for  their  grievance  and  their  com- 
plaint. "  And  they  blessed  Rebekah,  and  said  unto  her 
...  let  thy  seed  possess  the  gate  of  those  which  hate 
them."  They  set  about,  accordingly,  to  possess  very 
effectually  the  gates  of  those  which  hated  them.  Mobs 
assembled  every  night,  destroyed  turnpikes,  and  dispersed. 
They  met  with  little  molestation  in  most  cases  for  awhile. 
The  mobs  were  always  led  by  a  man  in  woman's  clothes, 
supposed  to  represent  the  typical  Rebecca.  As  the  dis- 
turbances went  on,  it  was  found  that  no  easier  mode  of 
disguise  could  be  got  than  a  woman's  clothes,  and,  there- 
fore, in  many  of  the  riots  petticoats  might  almost  be  said 
to  be  the  uniform  of  the  insurgent  force.  Night  after 
night  for  months  these  midnight  musterings  took  place. 
Rebecca  and  her  daughters  became  the  terror  of  many 
regions.  As  the  work  went  on  it  became  more  serious. 
Rebecca  and  her  daughters  grew  bold.  There  were  con- 
flicts with  the  police  and  with  the  soldiers.  It  is  to  be 
feared  that  men  and  even  women  died  for  Rebecca.  At 
last  the  Government  succeeded  in  putting  down  the  riots, 
and  had  the  wisdom  to  appoint  a  commission  to  inquire 
into  the  cause  of  so  much  disturbance ;  and  the  commis- 
sion, as  will  readily  be  imagined,  foimd  that  there  were 
genuine  grievances  at  the  bottom  of  the  popular  excite- 
VOL.  I.  — 16 


^4^  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ment.  The  farmers  and  the  laborers  were  poor;  the  tolls 
were  seriously  oppressive.  The  Government  dealt  lightly 
with  most  of  the  rioters  who  had  been  captured,  and  in- 
troduced measures  which  removed  the  grievances  most 
seriously  complained  of.  Rebecca  and  her  daughters  were 
heard  of  no  more.  They  had  made  out  their  case,  and 
done  in  their  wild  mumming  way  something  of  a  good 
work.  Only  a  short  time  before  the  rioters  would  have 
been  shot  down,  and  the  grievances  would  have  been  al- 
lowed to  stand.  Rebecca  and  her  short  career  mark  an 
advancement  in  the  political  and  social  history  of  Eng- 
land. 

Sir  James  Graham,  the  Home-secretary,  brought  him- 
self and  the  Government  into  some  trouble  by  the  manner 
in  which  he  made  use  of  the  power  invested  in  the  Admin- 
istration for  the  opening  of  private  letters.  Mr.  Dun- 
combe,  the  Radical  member  for  Finsbury,  presented  a 
petition  from  Joseph  Mazzini  and  others  complaining  that 
letters  addressed  to  them  had  been  opened  in  the  Post- 
office.  Many  of  Mazzini 's  friends,  and  perhaps  Mazzini 
himself,  believed  that  the  contents  of  these  letters  had 
been  communicated  to  the  Sardinian  and  Austrian  Gov- 
ernments, and  that,  as  a  result,  men  who  were  supposed 
to  be  implicated  in  projects  of  insurrection  on  the  Con- 
tinent had  actually  been  arrested  and  put  to  death.  Sir 
James  Graham  did  not  deny  that  he  had  issued  a  warrant 
authorizing  the  opening  of  some  of  Mazzini's  letters;  but 
he  contended  that  the  right  to  open  letters  had  been  spe- 
cially reserved  to  the  Government  on  its  responsibility,  that 
it  had  been  always  exercised,  but  by  him  with  special  cau- 
tion and  moderation ;  and  that  it  would  be  impossible  for 
any  Government  absolutely  to  deprive  itself  of  such  a 
right.  The  public  excitement  was  at  first  very  great ;  but 
it  soon  subsided.  The  reports  of  Parliamentary  commit- 
tees appointed  by  the  two  Houses  showed  that  all  Govern- 
ments had  exercised  the  right,  but  naturally  with  decreas- 
ing frequency  and  greater  caution  of  late  years;  and  that 


Peel's  Administration.  24} 

there  was  no  chance  now  of  its  being  seriously  abused.  No 
one,  not  even  Thomas  Carlyle,  who  had  written  to  the 
Times  in  [generous  indignation  at  the  opening  of  Mazzini's 
letters,  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  such  a  right  should  never 
be  exercised.  Carlyle  admitted  that  he  would  tolerate  the 
practice  "  when  some  new  Gunpowder  Plot  may  be  in  the 
wind,  some  double-dyed  high-treason  or  imminent  national 
wreck  not  avoidable  otherwise."  In  the  particular  case  of 
Mazzini  it  seemed  an  odious  trick,  and  every  one  was 
ashamed  of  it.  Such  a  feeling  was  the  surest  guard 
against  abuse  for  the  future,  and  the  matter  was  allowed 
to  drop.  The  minister  is  to  be  pitied  who  is  compelled 
even  by  legitimate  necessity  to  have  recourse  to  such  an 
expedient;  he  would  be  despised  now  by  every  decent 
man  if  he  turned  to  it  without  such  justification.  Many 
years  had  to  pass  away  before  Sir  James  Graham  was  free 
from  innuendoes  and  attacks  on  the  ground  that  he  had 
tampered  with  the  correspondence  of  an  exile.  One  re- 
mark, on  the  other  hand,  it  is  right  to  make.  An  exile  is 
sheltered  in  a  country  like  England  on  the  assumption 
that  he  does  not  involve  her  in  responsibility  and  danger 
by  using  her  protection  as  a  shield  behind  which  to  con- 
trive plots  and  organize  insurrections  against  foreign  Gov- 
ernments. It  is  certain  that  Mazzini  did  make  use  of  the 
shelter  England  gave  him  for  such  a  purpose.  It  would  in 
the  end  be  to  the  heavy  injury  of  all  fugitives  from  des- 
potic rule  if  to  shelter  them  brought  such  consequences  on 
the  countries  that  offered  them  a  home. 

The  Peel  Administration  was  made  memorable  by  many 
remarkable  events  at  home  as  well  as  abroad.  It  had,  as 
we  have  seen,  inherited  wars  and  brought  them  to  a  close ; 
it  had  wars  of  its  own.  Scinde  was  annexed  by  Lord 
Ellenborough  in  consequence  of  the  disputes  which  had 
arisen  between  us  and  the  Ameers,  whom  we  accused  of 
having  broken  faith  with  us.  They  were  said  to  be  in 
correspondence  with  our  enemies,  which  may  possibly 
have  been  true,  and  to  have  failed  to  pay  up  our  tribute, 


244  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

which  was  very  likely.  Anyhow  we  found  occasion  for 
an  attack  on  Scinde ;  and  the  result  was  the  total  defeat  of 
the  Princes  and  their  army,  and  the  annexation  of  the 
territory.  Sir  Charles  Napier  won  a  splendid  victory- 
splendid,  that  is,  in  a  military  sense— over  an  enemy  out- 
numbering him  by  more  than  twelve  to  one  at  the  battle 
of  Meeanee;  and  Scinde  was  ours.  Peel  and  his  col- 
leagues accepted  the  annexation.  None  of  them  liked 
it;  but  none  saw  how  it  could  be  undone.  There  was 
nothing  to  be  proud  of  in  the  matter,  except  the  courage 
of  our  soldiers,  and  the  genius  of  Sir  Charles  Napier,  one 
of  the  most  brilliant,  daring,  successful,  eccentric,  and  self- 
conceited  captains  who  had  ever  fought  in  the  service  of 
England  since  the  days  of  Peterborough.  Later  on,  the 
Sikhs  invaded  our  territory  by  crossing  the  Sutlej  in  great 
force.  Sir  Hugh  Gough,  afterward  Lord  Gough,  fought 
several  fierce  battles  with  them  before  he  could  conquer 
them ;  and  even  then  they  were  only  conquered  for  the 

time. 

We  were  at  one  moment  apparently  on  the  very  verge 
of  what  must  have  proved  a  far  more  serious  war  much 
nearer  home,  in  consequence  of  the  dispute  that  arose 
between  this  country  and  France  about  Tahiti  and  Queen 
Pomare.  Queen  Pomare  was  sovereign  of  the  island  of 
Tahiti,  in  the  South  Pacific,  the  Otaheite  of  Captain  Cook. 
She  was  a  pupil  of  some  of  our  missionaries,  and  was  very 
friendly  to  England  and  its  people.  She  had  been  in- 
duced or  compelled  to  put  herself  and  her  dominion  under 
the  protection  of  France ;  a  step  which  was  highly  displeas- 
ing to  her  subjects.  Some  ill-feeling  toward  the  French 
residents  of  the  island  was  shown ;  and  the  French  admiral, 
who  had  induced  or  compelled  the  Queen  to  put  herself 
under  French  protection,  now  suddenly  appeared  off  the 
coast,  and  called  on  her  to  hoist  the  French  flag  above  her 
own.  She  refused ;  and  he  instantly  effected  a  landing  on 
the  island,  pulled  down  her  flag,  raised  that  of  France  in 
its  place,  and  proclaimed  that  the  island  was  French  ter- 


Peel's  Administration.  245 

rltory.  The  French  admiral  appears  to  have  been  a  hot- 
headed, thoughtless  sort  of  man,  the  Commodore  Wilkes 
of  his  day.  His  act  was  at  once  disavowed  by  the  French 
Government,  and  condemned  in  strong  terms  by  M. 
Guizot.  But  Queen  Pomare  had  appealed  to  the  Queen 
of  England  for  assistance.  "  Do  not  cast  me  away,  my 
friend,"  she  said;  "  I  run  to  you  for  refuge,  to  be  covered 
imder  your  great  shadow,  the  same  that  afforded  relief  to 
my  fathers  by  your  fathers,  who  are  now  dead,  and  whose 
kingdoms  have  descended  to  us,  the  weaker  vessels. "  A 
large  party  in  France  allowed  themselves  to  become  in- 
flamed with  the  idea  that  British  intrigue  was  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  Tahiti  people's  dislike  to  the  protectorate  of 
France,  and  that  England  wanted  to  get  Queen  Pomare 's 
dominions  for  herself.  They  cried  out,  therefore,  that  to 
take  down  the  flag  of  France  from  its  place  in  Tahiti 
would  be  to  insult  the  dignity  of  the  French  nation,  and 
to  insult  it  at  the  instance  of  England.  The  cry  was 
echoed  in  the  shrillest  tones  by  a  great  number  of  French 
newspapers.  Where  the  flag  of  France  has  once  been 
hoisted,  they  screamed,  it  must  never  be  taken  down; 
which  is  about  equivalent  to  saying  that  if  a  man's  offi- 
cious servant  carries  off  the  property  of  some  one  else,  and 
gives  it  to  his  master,  the  master's  dignity  is  lowered  by 
his  consenting  to  hand  it  back  to  its  owner.  In  the  face 
of  this  clamor  the  French  Government,  although  they  dis- 
avowed any  share  in  the  filibustering  of  their  admiral,  did 
not  show  themselves  in  great  haste  to  undo  what  he  had 
done.  Possibly  they  found  themselves  in  something  of 
the  same  difficulty  as  the  English  Government  in  regard 
to  the  annexation  of  Scinde.  They  could  not,  perhaps, 
with  great  safety  to  themselves  have  ventured  to  be  hon- 
est all  at  once;  and  in  any  case  they  did  not  want  to  give 
up  the  protectorate  of  Tahiti.  While  the  more  hot-headed 
on  both  sides  of  the  English  Channel  were  thus  snarling 
at  each  other,  the  difficulty  was  immensely  complicated 
by  the  seizure  of  a  missionary  named  Pritchard,  who  had 


246  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

been  our  consul  in  the  island  up  to  the  deposition  of 
Pomare.  A  French  sentinel  had  been  attacked,  or  was 
said  to  have  been  attacked,  in  the  night,  and  in  conse- 
quence the  French  commandant  seized  Pritchard  in 
reprisal,  declaring  him  to  be  "  the  only  mover  and  instiga- 
tor of  disturbances  among  the  natives."  Pritchard  was 
flung  into  prison,  and  only  released  to  be  expelled  from 
the  island.  He  came  home  to  England  with  his  story; 
and  his  arrival  was  the  signal  for  an  outburst  of  indigna- 
tion all  over  the  country.  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Lord  Aber- 
deen alike  stigmatized  the  treatment  of  Pritchard  as  a 
gross  and  intolerable  outrage;  and  satisfaction  was  de- 
manded of  the  French  Government.  The  King  and  M. 
Guizot  were  both  willing  that  full  justice  should  be  done, 
and  both  anxious  to  avoid  any  occasion  of  ill-feeling  with 
England,  The  King  had  lately  been  receiving,  with 
effusive  show  of  affection,  a  visit  from  our  Queen  in 
France,  and  was  about  to  return  it.  But  so  hot  was  popu- 
lar passion  on  both  sides  that  it  would  have  needed 
stronger  and  juster  natures  than  those  of  the  King  and  his 
minister  to  venture  at  once  on  doing  the  right  thing.  It 
was  on  the  last  day  of  the  session  of  1844,  September  5th, 
that  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  able  to  announce  that  the  French 
Government  had  agreed  to  compensate  Pritchard  for  his 
sufferings  and  losses.  Queen  Pomare  was  nominally  re- 
stored to  power,  but  the  French  protection  proved  as 
stringent  as  if  it  were  a  sovereign  rule.  She  might  as 
well  have  pulled  down  her  flag  for  all  the  sovereign  right 
it  secured  to  her.  She  died  thirty-four  years  after,  and 
her  death  recalled  to  the  memory  of  the  English  public 
the  long-forgotten  fact  that  she  had  once  so  nearly  been 
the  cause  of  a  war  between  England  and  France. 

The  Ashburton  Treaty  and  the  Oregon  Treaty  belong 
alike  to  the  history  of  Peel's  Administration.  The  Ash- 
burton Treaty  bears  date  August  9th,  1842,  and  arranges 
finally  the  northwestern  boundary  between  the  British 
Provinces  of  North  America  and  the  United  States.     For 


Peel's  Administration.  241 

many  years  the  want  of  any  clear  and  settled  understand- 
ing as  to  the  boundary  line  between  Canada  and  the  State 
of  Maine  had  been  a  source  of  some  disturbance  and  of  much 
controversy.  Arbitration  between  England  and  the  United 
States  had  been  tried  and  failed,  both  parties  declining 
the  award.  Sir  Robert  Peel  sent  out  Lord  Ashburton, 
formerly  Mr.  Baring,  as  plenipotentiary  to  Washington, 
in  1842,  and  by  his  intelligent  exertions  an  arrangement 
was  come  to  which  appears  to  have  given  mutual  satisfac- 
tion ever  since,  despite  of  the  sinister  prophesyings  of 
Lord  Palmerston  at  the  time.  The  Oregon  question  was 
more  complicated,  and  was  the  source  of  a  longer  con- 
troversy. More  than  once  the  dispute  about  the  boundary 
line  in  the  Oregon  region  had  very  nearly  become  an 
occasion  for  war  between  England  and  the  United  States. 
In  Canning's  time  there  was  a  crisis  during  which,  to 
quote  the  words  of  an  English  statesman,  war  could  have 
been  brought  about  by  the  holding  up  of  a  finger.  The 
question  in  dispute  was  as  to  the  boundary  line  between 
English  and  American  territory  west  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. It  had  seemed  a  matter  of  little  importance  at  one 
time,  when  the  country  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  was 
regarded  by  most  persons  as  little  better  than  a  desert 
idle.  But  when  the  vast  capacities  and  the  splendid  future 
of  the  Pacific  slope  began  to  be  recognized,  and  the  im- 
portance to  us  of  some  station  and  harbor  there  came  to  be 
more  and  more  evident,  the  dispute  naturally  swelled  into 
a  question  of  vital  interest  to  both  nations.  In  18 18  an 
attempt  at  arrangement  was  made,  but  failed.  The  two 
Governments  then  agreed  to  leave  the  disputed  regions  to 
joint  occupation  for  ten  years,  after  which  the  subject  was 
to  be  opened  again.  When  the  end  of  the  first  term  came 
near.  Canning  did  his  best  to  bring  about  a  settlement, 
but  failed.  The  dispute  involved  the  ownership  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Columbia  River,  and  of  the  noble  island 
which  bears  the  name  of  Vancouver,  oiT  the  shore  of 
British  Columbia.     The  joint  occupancy  was  renewed  for 


248  A  History  of  Our  Oivn  Times. 

an  indefinite  time ;  but  in  1843  the  President  of  the  United 
States  somewhat  peremptorily  called  for  a  final  settlement 
of  the  boundary.  The  question  was  eagerly  taken  up  by 
excitable  politicians  in  the  American  House  of  Representa- 
tives. For  more  than  two  years  the  Oregon  question  be- 
came a  party  cry  in  America.  With  a  large  proportion  of 
the  American  public,  including,  of  course,  nearly  all 
citizens  of  Irish  birth  or  extraction,  any  President  would 
have  been  popular  beyond  measure  who  had  forced  a  war 
on  England.  Calmer  and  wiser  counsels  prevailed,  how- 
ever, on  both  sides.  Lord  Aberdeen,  our  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, was  especially  moderate  and  conciliatory.  He  offered 
a  compromise  which  was  at  last  accepted.  On  June  15th, 
1846,  the  Oregon  Treaty  settled  the  question  for  that  time 
at  least;  the  dividing  line  was  to  be  "the  forty-ninth 
degree  of  latitude,  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  west  to  the 
middle  of  the  channel  separating  Vancouver's  Island 
from  the  mainland;  thence  southerly  through  the  middle 
of  the  channel  and  of  Fuca's  Straits  to  the  Pacific."  The 
channel  and  straits  were  to  be  free,  as  also  the  great 
northern  branch  of  the  Columbia  River.  In  other  words, 
Vancouver's  Island  remained  to  Great  Britain,  and  the 
free  navigation  of  the  Columbia  River  was  secured.  We 
have  said  that  the  question  was  settled  "for  that  time;" 
because  an  important  part  of  it  came  up  again  for  settle- 
ment many  years  after.  The  commissioners  appointed  to 
determine  that  portion  of  the  boundary  which  was  to  run 
southerly  through  the  middle  of  the  channel  were  imable 
to  come  to  any  agreement  on  the  subject,  and  the  diver- 
gence of  the  claims  made  on  one  side  and  the  other  con- 
stituted a  new  question,  which  became  a  part  of  the 
famous  Treaty  of  Washington  in  187 1,  and  was  finally 
settled  by  the  arbitration  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany. 
But  it  is  much  to  the  honor  of  the  Peel  Administration 
that  a  dispute  which  had  for  years  been  charged  with 
possibilities  of  war,  and  had  become  a  stock  subject  of 
political  agitation  in  America,  should  have  been  so  far 


Peel's  Administration.  249 

settled  as  to  be  removed  forever  after  out  of  the  category 
of  disputes  which  suggest  an  appeal  to  arms.  This  was 
one  of  the  last  acts  of  Peel's  Government,  and  it  was  not 
the  least  of  the  great  things  he  had  done.  We  have  soon 
to  tell  how  it  came  about  that  it  was  one  of  his  latest 
triumphs,  and  how  an  Administration  which  had  come 
into  power  with  such  splendid  promise,  and  had  accom- 
plished so  much  in  such  various  fields  of  legislation,  was 
brought  so  suddenly  to  a  fall.  The  story  is  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  and  important  chapters  in  the  history  of 
English  politics  and  parties. 

During  Peel's  time  we  catch  a  last  glimpse  of  the 
famous  Arctic  navigator,  vSir  John  Franklin.  He  sailed 
on  the  expedition  which  was  doomed  to  be  his  last  on 
May  26th,  1845,  with  his  two  vessels,  Erebus  and  Terror. 
Not  much  more  is  heard  of  him  as  among  the  living.  We 
may  say  of  him,  as  Carlyle  says  of  La  Perouse,  "  The  brave 
navigator  goes  and  returns  not ;  the  seekers  search  far  seas 
for  him  in  vain;  only  some  mournful,  mysterious  shadow 
of  him  hovers  long  in  all  heads  and  hearts," 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

FREE-TRADE    AND    THE    LEAGUE. 

Few  chapters  of  political  history  in  modern  times  have 
given  occasion  for  more  controversy  than  that  which  con- 
tains the  story  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Administration  in  its 
dealing  with  the  Corn-laws.  Told  in  the  briefest  form, 
the  story  is  that  Peel  came  into  office  in  1841  to  maintain 
the  Corn-laws,  and  that  in  1846  he  repealed  them.  The 
controversy  as  to  the  wisdom  or  unwisdom  of  repealing 
the  Corn-laws  has  long  since  come  to  an  end.  They  who 
were  the  uncompromising  opponents  of  Free-trade  at  that 
time  are  proud  to  call  themselves  its  uncompromising  zeal- 
ots now.  Indeed,  there  is  no  more  chance  of  a  reaction 
against  Free-trade  in  England  than  there  is  of  a  reaction 
against  the  rule  of  three.  But  the  controversy  still  exists, 
and  will  probably  always  be  in  dispute,  as  to  the  conduct 
of  Sir  Robert  Peel. 

The  Melbourne  Ministry  fell,  as  we  have  seen,  in  con- 
sequence of  a  direct  vote  of  want  of  confidence  moved  by 
their  leading  opponent,  and  the  return  of  a  majority  hostile 
to  them  at  the  general  election  that  followed.  The  vote  of 
want  of  confidence  was  levelled  against  their  financial 
policy,  especially  against  Lord  John  Russell's  proposal  to 
substitute  a  fixed  duty  of  eight  shillings  for  Peel's  sliding 
scale.  Sir  Robert  Peel  came  into  office,  and  he  intro- 
duced a  reorganized  scheme  of  a  sliding  scale,  reducing 
the  duties  and  improving  the  system,  but  maintaining  the 
principle.  Lord  John  Russell  proposed  an  amendment 
declaring  that  the  House  of  Commons,  "considering  the 
evils  which  have  been  caused  by  the  present  Corn-laws, 
and  especially  by  the  fluctuation  of  the  graduated  or  slid- 


Free- Trade  and  the  League.  251 

ing-  scale,  is  not  prepared  to  adopt  the  measure  of  her 
Majesty's  Government,  which  is  foimded  on  the  same 
principles,  and  is  likely  to  be  attended  by  similar  results." 
The  amendment  was  rejected  by  a  large  majority,  no  less 
than  one  hundred  and  twenty-three.  But  the  question 
between  Free-trade  and  Protection  was  even  more  dis- 
tinctly raised.  Mr.  Villiers  proposed  another  amendment 
declaring  for  the  entire  abolition  of  all  duties  on  grain. 
Only  ninety  votes  were  given  for  the  amendment,  while 
three  hundred  and  ninety-three  were  recorded  against  it. 
Sir  Robert  Peel's  Government,  therefore,  came  into  power 
distinctly  pledged  to  uphold  the  principle  of  protection  for 
home-grown  grain.  Four  years  after  this  Sir  Robert  Peel 
proposed  the  total  abolition  of  the  corn  duties.  For  this 
he  was  denounced  by  some  members  of  his  party  in  lan- 
guage more  fierce  and  unmeasured  than  ever  since  has 
been  applied  to  any  leading  statesman.  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  never  assailed  by  the  stanchest  supporter  of  the  Irish 
Church  in  words  so  vituperative  as  those  which  rated  Sir 
Robert  Peel  for  his  supposed  apostasy.  One  eminent 
person,  at  least,  made  his  first  fame  as  a  Parliamentary 
orator  by  his  denunciations  of  the  great  minister  whom 
he  had  previously  eulogized  and  supported. 

"  The  history  of  agricultural  distress,"  it  has  been  well 
observed,  "  is  the  history  of  agricultural  abundance. "  This 
looks  at  first  sight  a  paradox;  but  nothing  can  in  reality 
be  more  plain  and  less  paradoxical.  "Whenever,"  to  fol- 
low out  the  passage,  "  Providence,  through  the  blessing  of 
genial  seasons,  fills  the  nation's  stores  with  plenteousness, 
then,  and  then  only,  has  the  cry  of  ruin  to  the  cultivator 
been  proclaimed  as  the  one  great  evil  for  legislation  to 
repress."  This  is,  indeed,  the  very  meaning  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  protection.  When  the  commodity  which  the 
protected  interest  has  to  dispose  of  is  so  abundant  as  to 
be  easily  attained  by  the  common  body  of  consumers,  then, 
of  course,  the  protected  interest  is  injured  in  its  particular 
way  of  making  money,  and  expects  the  State  to  do  some- 


2y2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

thing  to  secure  it  in  the  principal  advantage  of  its  monop- 
oly. The  greater  quantity  of  grain  a  good  harvest  brings 
for  the  benefit  of  all  the  people,  the  less  the  price  the  corn- 
grower  can  charge  for  it.  His  interest  as  a  monopolist  is 
always  and  inevitably  opposed  to  the  interest  of  the 
community. 

But  it  is  easy  even  now,  when  we  have  almost  forgotten 
the  days  of  protection,  to  see  that  the  corn-grower  is  not 
likely  either  to  recognize  or  to  admit  this  conflict  of 
interests  between  his  protection  and  the  public  welfare. 
Apart  from  the  natural  tendency  of  every  man  to  think 
that  that  which  does  him  good  must  do  good  to  the  com- 
munity, there  was,  undoubtedly,  something  very  fascinat- 
ing in  the  theory  of  protection.  It  had  a  charming  give 
and  take,  live  and  let  live,  air  about  it.  "  You  give  me  a 
little  more  than  the  market  price  for  my  corn,  and  don't 
you  see  I  shall  be  able  to  buy  all  the  more  of  your  cloth 
and  tea  and  sugar,  or  to  pay  you  the  higher  rent  for  your 
land?"  Such  a  compact  seems  reasonable  and  tempting. 
Almost  up  to  our  own  time  the  legislation  of  the  country 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  classes  who  had  more  to  do  with 
the  growing  of  corn  and  the  ownership  of  land  than  with 
the  making  of  cotton  and  the  working  of  machinery.  The 
great  object  of  legislation  and  of  social  compacts  of  what- 
ever kind  seemed  to  be  to  keep  the  rents  of  the  land-owners 
and  the  prices  of  the  farmers  up  to  a  comfortable  standard. 
It  is  not  particularly  to  the  discredit  of  the  landlords  and 
the  farmers  that  this  was  so.  We  have  seen,  in  later 
times,  how  every  class  in  succession  has  resisted  the  move- 
ment of  the  principle  of  Free-trade  when  it  came  to  be 
applied  to  its  own  particular  interests.  The  paper  manu- 
facturers liked  it  as  little  in  i860  as  the  landlords  and 
farmers  had  done  fifteen  years  earlier.  When  the  cup 
comes  to  be  commended  to  the  lips  of  each  interest  in  turn, 
we  always  find  that  it  is  received  as  a  poisoned  chalice, 
and  taken  with  much  shuddering  and  passionate  protesta- 
tion.    The  particular  advantage  possessed  by  vested  intep 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  253 

ests  in  the  Corn-laws  was  that  for  a  long  time  the  landlords 
possessed  all  the  legislative  power  and  all  the  prestige  as 
well.  There  was  a  certain  reverence  and  sanctity  about 
the  ownership  of  land,  with  its  hereditary  descent  and  its 
patriarchal  dignities,  which  the  manufacture  of  paper 
could  not  pretend  to  claim. 

If  it  really  were  true  that  the  legitimate  incomes  or  the 
legitimate  influence  of  the  landlord  class  in  England  went 
down  in  any  way  because  of  the  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws, 
it  would  have  to  be  admitted  that  the  landlords,  like  the 
aristocrats  before  the  French  Revolution,  had  done  some- 
thing themselves  to  encourage  the  growth  of  new  and 
disturbing  ideas.  Before  the  Revolution,  free  thought 
and  the  equality  and  brotherhood  of  man  were  beginning 
to  be  pet  doctrines  among  the  French  nobles  and  among 
their  wives  and  daughters.  It  was  the  whim  of  the  hour 
to  talk  Rousseau,  and  to  affect  indifference  to  rank,  and 
a  general  faith  in  a  good  time  coming  of  equality  and 
brotherhood.  In  something  of  the  same  fashion  the 
aristocracy  of  England  were  for  some  time  before  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn-laws  illustrating  a  sort  of  revival 
of  patriarchal  ideas  about  the  duties  of  property.  The 
influence  was  stirring  everywhere.  Oxford  was  be- 
ginning to  busy  itself  in  the  revival  of  the  olden  influ- 
ence of  the  Church.  The  Young  England  party,  as  they 
were  then  called,  were  ardent  to  restore  the  good  old  days 
when  the  noble  was  the  father  of  the  poor  and  the  chief  of 
his  neighborhood.  All  manner  of  pretty  whimsies  were 
caught  up  with  this  ruling  idea  to  give  them  an  appear- 
ance of  earnest  purpose.  The  young  landlord  exhibited 
himself  in  the  attitude  of  a  protector,  patron,  and  friend 
to  all  his  tenants.  Doles  were  formally  given  at  stated 
hours  to  all  who  would  come  for  them  to  the  castle  gate. 
Young  noblemen  played  cricket  with  the  peasants  on  their 
estate,  and  the  Saturnian  Age  was  believed  by  a  good 
many  persons  to  be  returning  for  the  express  benefit  of 
Old,  or  rather  of  Young,  England.     There  was  something 


254  ^  History  of  Otir  Own  Times. 

like  a  party  being  formed  in  Parliament  for  the  realization 
of  Young  England's  idyllic  purposes.  It  comprised  among 
its  numbers  several  more  or  less  gifted  youths  of  rank, 
who  were  full  of  enthusiasm  and  poetic  aspirations  and 
nonsense;  and  it  had  the  encouragement  and  support  of 
one  man  of  genius,  who  had  no  natural  connection  with 
the  English  aristocracy,  but  who  was  afterward  destined 
to  be  the  successful  leader  of  the  Conservative  and  aristo- 
cratic party ;  to  be  its  savior  when  it  was  all  but  down  in 
the  dust;  to  guide  it  to  victory,  and  make  it  once  more, 
for  the  time  at  least,  supreme  in  the  political  life  of  the 
country.  This  brilliant  champion  of  Conservatism  has 
often  spoken  of  the  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws  as  the  fall  of 
the  landlord  class  in  England.  If  the  landlords  fell,  it 
must  be  said  of  them,  as  has  been  fairly  said  of  many  a 
dynasty,  that  they  never  deserved  better,  on  the  whole, 
than  just  at  the  time  when  the  blow  struck  them  down. 

The  famous  Corn-law  of  1815  was  a  copy  of  the  Corn -law 
of  1670.  The  former  measure  imposed  a  duty  on  the  im- 
portation of  foreign  grain  which  amounted  to  prohibition. 
Wheat  might  be  exported  upon  the  payment  of  one  shil- 
ling per  quarter  customs  duty;  but  importation  was  prac- 
tically prohibited  until  the  price  of  wheat  had  reached 
eighty  shillings  a  quarter.  The  Corn -law  of  18 15  was 
hurried  through  Parliament,  absolutely  closing  the  ports 
against  the  importation  of  foreign  grain  until  the  price  of 
our  home-grown  grain  had  reached  the  magic  figure  of 
eighty  shillings  a  quarter.  It  was  hurried  through,  de- 
spite the  most  earnest  petitions  from  the  commercial  and 
manufacturing  classes,  A  great  deal  of  popular  disturb- 
ance attended  the  passing  of  the  measure.  There  were 
riots  in  London,  and  the  houses  of  several  of  the  supporters 
of  the  bill  were  attacked.  Incendiary  fires  blazed  in  many 
parts  of  the  country.  In  the  Isle  of  Ely  there  were  riots 
which  lasted  for  two  days  and  two  nights,  and  the  aid  of 
the  military  had  to  be  called  in  to  suppress  them.  Five 
persons  were  hanged  as  the  result  of  these  disturbances. 


Free-  Trade  and  the  League.  255 

One  might  excuse  a  demagogue  who  compared  the  event 
to  the  suppression  of  some  of  the  food  riots  in  France  just 
before  the  Revolution,  of  which  we  only  read  that  the 
people — the  poor,  that  is  to  say — turned  out  demanding 
bread,  and  the  ringleaders  were  immediately  hanged,  and 
there  was  an  end  of  the  matter.  After  the  Corn-law  of 
181 5,  thus  ominously  introduced,  there  were  Sliding-scale 
Acts,  having  for  their  business  to  establish  a  varying 
system  of  duty,  so  that,  according  as  the  price  of  home- 
produced  wheat  rose  to  a  certain  height,  the  duty  on  im- 
ported wheat  sank  in  proportion.  The  principle  of  all  these 
measures  was  the  same.  It  was  founded  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  corn  grew  for  the  benefit  of  the  grower  first 
of  all ;  and  that  until  he  had  been  secured  in  a  handsome 
profit  the  public  at  large  had  no  right  to  any  reduction  in 
the  cost  of  food.  When  the  harvest  was  a  good  one,  and 
the  golden  grain  was  plenty,  then  the  soul  of  the  grower 
was  afraid,  and  he  called  out  to  Parliament  to  protect  him 
against  the  calamity  of  having  to  sell  his  corn  any  cheaper 
than  in  years  of  famine.  He  did  not  see  all  the  time  that 
if  the  prosperity  of  the  country  in  general  was  enhanced, 
he  too  must  come  to  benefit  by  it. 

Naturally  it  was  in  places  like  Manchester  that  the  fal- 
lacy of  all  this  theory  was  first  commonly  perceived  and 
most  warmly  resented.  The  Manchester  manufacturers 
saw  that  the  customers  for  their  goods  were  to  be  found 
in  all  parts  of  the  world ;  and  they  knew  that  at  every 
turn  they  were  hampered  in  their  dealings  with  the  cus- 
tomers by  the  system  of  protective  duties.  They  wanted 
to  sell  their  goods  wherever  they  could  find  buyers,  and 
they  chafed  at  any  barrier  between  them  and  the  sale. 
Manchester,  from  the  time  of  its  first  having  Parliamentary 
representation — only  a  few  years  before  the  foundation  of 
the  Anti-Corn-Law  League — had  always  spoken  out  for 
Free-trade.  The  fascinating  sophism  which  had  such 
charms  for  other  communities,  that  by  paying  more  than 
was  actually  necessary  for  everything  all  round,  Dick  en- 


256  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

riched  Tom,  while  Tom  was  at  the  same  time  enriching 
Dick,  had  no  charms  for  the  intelligence  and  the  practical 
experience  of  Manchester.  The  close  of  the  year  1836  was 
a  period  of  stagnant  trade  and  general  depression,  arising, 
in  some  parts  of  the  country,  to  actual  and  severe  suffering. 
Some  members  of  Parliament  and  other  influential  men 
were  stricken  with  the  idea,  which  it  does  not  seem  to 
have  required  much  strength  of  observation  to  foster,  that 
it  could  not  be  for  the  advantage  of  the  country  in  general 
to  have  the  price  of  bread  very  high  at  a  time  when 
wages  were  very  low  and  work  was  scarce.  A  movement 
against  the  Corn-laws  began  in  London.  An  Anti-Corn- 
Law  Association  on  a  small  scale  was  formed.  Its  list  of 
members  bore  the  names  of  more  than  twenty  members  of 
Parliament,  and  for  a  time  the  society  had  a  look  of  vigor 
about  it.  It  came  to  nothing,  however.  London  has 
never  been  found  an  effective  nursery  of  agitation.  It  is 
too  large  to  have  any  central  interest  or  source  of  action. 
It  is  too  dependent,  socially  and  economically,  on  the 
patronage  of  the  higher  and  wealthier  classes.  London 
has  never  been  to  England  what  Paris  has  been  to  France. 
It  has  hardly  ever  made  or  represented  thoroughly  the 
public  opinion  of  England  during  any  great  crisis.  A 
new  centre  of  operations  soon  had  to  be  sought,  and  various 
causes  combined  to  make  Lancashire  the  proper  place. 
In  the  year  1838  the  town  of  Bolton-le-Moors,  in  Lanca- 
shire, was  the  victim  of  a  terrible  commercial  crisis. 
Thirty  out  of  the  fifty  manufacturing  establishments  which 
the  town  contained  were  closed;  nearly  a  fourth  of  all  the 
houses  of  business  were  closed  and  actually  deserted ;  and 
more  than  five  thousand  workmen  were  without  homes  or 
means  of  subsistence.  All  the  intelligence  and  energy  of 
Lancashire  was  roused.  One  obvious  guarantee  against 
starvation  was  cheap  bread,  and  cheap  bread  meant,  of 
course,  the  abolition  of  the  Corn-laws,  for  these  laws  were 
constructed  on  the  principle  that  it  was  necessary  to  keep 
bread  dear.     A  meeting  was  held  in  Manchester  to  con- 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  2^'j 

sider  measures  necessary  to  be  adopted  for  bringing  about 
the  complete  repeal  of  these  laws.  The  Manchester 
Chamber  of  Commerce  adopted  a  petition  to  Parliament 
against  the  Corn-laws.  The  Anti-Corn-law  agitation  had 
been  fairly  launched. 

From  that  time  it  grew,  and  grew  in  importance  and 
strength.  Meetings  were  held  in  various  towns  of  England 
and  Scotland.  Associations  were  formed  everywhere  to 
co-operate  with  the  movement,  which  had  its  headquarters 
in  Manchester.  In  Newall's  Buildings,  Market  Street, 
Manchester,  the  work  of  the  League  was  really  done  for 
years.  The  leaders  of  the  movement  gave  up  their  time 
day  by  day  to  its  service.  The  League  had  to  encounter 
a  great  deal  of  rather  fierce  opposition  from  the  Chartists, 
who  loudl)'  proclaimed  that  the  whole  movement  was  only 
meant  to  entrap  them  once  more  into  an  alliance  with  the 
middle  classes  and  the  employers,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Reform  Bill,  in  order  that  when  they  had  been  made  the 
cat's-paw  again  they  might  again  be  thrown  contemptu- 
ously aside.  On  the  other  hand,  the  League  had  from 
the  first  the  cordial  co-operation  of  Daniel  O'Connell,  wlio 
became  one  of  their  principal  orators  when  they  held 
meetings  in  the  metropolis.  They  issued  pamphlets  by 
hundreds  of  thousands,  and  sent  lecturers  all  over  the 
country  explaining  the  principles  of  Free-trade.  A 
gigantic  propaganda  of  Free-trade  opinions  was  called  into 
existence.  Money  was  raised  by  the  holding  of  bazaars  in 
Manchester  and  in  London,  and  by  calling  for  subscrip- 
tions. A  bazaar  in  Manchester  brought  in  ten  thousand 
pounds;  one  in  London  raised  rather  more  than  double 
that  sum,  not  including  the  subscriptions  that  were  contrib- 
uted. A  Free-trade  Hall  was  built  in  Manchester.  This 
building  had  an  interesting  history  full  of  good  omen  for 
the  cause.  The  ground  on  which  the  hall  was  erected  was 
the  property  of  Mr.  Cobden,  and  was  placed  by  him  at  the 
disposal  of  the  League.  That  ground  was  the  scene  of 
what  was  known  in  Manchester  as  the  Massacre  of  Peter- 

VOL.    I. — 17 


2^8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

loo.  On  August  1 6th,  1819,  a  meeting  of  Manchester 
Reformers  was  held  on  that  spot,  which  was  dispersed  by 
an  attack  of  soldiers  and  militia,  with  the  loss  of  many 
lives.  The  memory  of  that  day  rankled  in  the  hearts  of 
the  Manchester  Liberals  for  long  after,  and  perhaps  no 
better  means  could  be  found  for  purifying  the  ground 
from  the  stain  and  the  shame  of  such  bloodshed  than  its 
dedication  by  the  modern  apostle  of  peace  and  Free-trade 
as  a  site  whereon  to  build  a  hall  sacred  to  the  promulgation 
of  his  favorite  doctrines. 

The  times  were  peculiarly  favorable  to  the  new  sort  of 
propaganda  which  came  into  being  with  the  Anti-Corn-Law 
League.  A  few  years  before  such  an  agitation  would 
hardly  have  found  the  means  of  making  its  influence  felt 
all  over  the  country.  The  very  reduction  of  the  cost  of 
postage  alone  must  have  facilitated  its  labors  to  an  extent 
beyond  calculation.  The  inundation  of  the  country  with 
pamphlets,  tracts,  and  reports  of  speeches  would  have  been 
scarcely  possible  under  the  old  system,  and  would  in  any 
case  have  swallowed  up  a  far  larger  amount  of  money  than 
even  the  League  with  its  ample  resources  would  have  been 
able  to  supply.  In  all  parts  of  the  country  railways  were 
being  opened,  and  these  enabled  the  lecturers  of  the 
League  to  hasten  from  town  to  town  and  to  keep  the  cause 
always  alive  in  the  popular  mind.  All  these  advantages 
and  many  others  might,  however,  have  proved  of  little 
avail  if  the  League  had  not  from  the  first  been  in  the 
hands  of  men  who  seemed  as  if  they  came  by  special  ap- 
pointment to  do  its  work.  Great  as  the  work  was  which 
the  League  did,  it  will  be  remembered  in  England  almost 
as  much  because  of  the  men  who  won  the  success  as  on 
account  of  the  success  itself. 

The  nominal  leader  of  the  Free-trade  party  in  Parlia- 
ment was  for  many  years  Mr.  Charles  Villiers,  a  man  of 
aristocratic  family  and  surroundings,  of  remarkable  ability, 
and  of  the  steadiest  fidelity  to  the  cause  he  had  undertaken. 
Nothing  is  a  more  familiar  phenomenon  in  the  history  of 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  259 

English  political  agitation  than  the  aristocrat  who  assumes 
the  popular  cause  and  cries  out  for  the  "rights"  of  the 
"unenfranchised  millions."  But  it  was  something  new  to 
find  a  man  of  Mr.  Villiers'  class  devoting  himself  to  a 
cause  so  entirely  practical  and  business-like  as  that  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn-laws.  Mr.  Villiers  brought  forward  for 
several  successive  sessions  in  the  House  of  Commons  a 
motion  in  favor  of  the  total  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws.  His 
eloquence  and  his  argumentative  power  served  the  great 
purpose  of  drawing  the  attention  of  the  country  to  the 
whole  question,  and  making  converts  to  the  principle 
he  advocated.  The  House  of  Commons  has  always  of  late 
years  been  the  best  platform  from  which  to  address  the 
country.  In  political  agitation  it  has  thus  been  made  to 
prepare  the  way  for  the  schemes  of  legislation  which  it 
has  itself  always  begim  by  reprobating.  But  Mr.  Villiers 
might  have  gone  on  for  all  his  life  dividing  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  question  of  Free-trade  without  getting 
much  nearer  to  his  object,  if  it  were  not  for  the  manner 
in  which  the  cause  was  taken  up  by  the  country,  and  more 
particularly  by  the  great  manufacturing  towns  of  the 
North.  Until  the  passing  of  Lord  Grey's  Reform  Bill 
these  towns  had  no  representation  in  Parliament.  They 
seemed  destined  after  that  event  to  make  up  for  their  long 
exclusion  from  representative  influence  by  taking  the 
government  of  the  country  into  their  own  hands.  Of  late 
years  they  have  lost  some  of  their  relative  influence.  They 
have  not  now  all  the  power  that  for  no  inconsiderable  time 
they  undoubtedly  possessed.  The  reforms  they  chiefly 
aimed  at  have  been  carried,  and  the  spirit  which  in  times 
of  stress  and  struggle  kept  their  populations  almost  of  one 
mind  has  less  necessity  of  existence  now.  Manchester, 
Birmingham  and  Leeds  are  no  wit  less  important  to  the 
life  of  the  nation  now  than  they  were  before  Free-trade. 
But  their  supremacy  does  not  exist  now  as  it  did  then.  At 
that  time  it  was  town  against  country,  Manchester  repre- 
senting the  towns,   and  the  whole  Conservative  (at  one 


26o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

period  almost  the  whole  land-owning)  body  representing 
the  country.  The  Manchester  school,  as  it  was  called, 
then  and  for  long  after  had  some  teachers  and  leaders  who 
were  of  themselves  capable  of  making  any  school  powerful 
and  respected.  With  the  Manchester  school  began  a  new 
kind  of  popular  agitation.  Up  to  that  time  agitation 
meant  appeal  to  passion,  and  lived  by  provoking  passion. 
Its  cause  might  be  good  or  bad,  but  the  way  of  promoting 
it  was  the  same.  The  Manchester  school  introduced  the 
agitation  which  appealed  to  reason  and  argument  only, 
which  stirred  men's  hearts  with  figures  of  arithmetic 
rather  than  figures  of  speech,  and  which  converted  mob 
meetings  to  political  economy. 

The  real  leader  of  the  movement  was  Mr.  Richard  Cob- 
den.  Mr.  Cobden  was  a  man  belonging  to  the  yeoman 
class.  He  had  received  but  a  moderate  education.  His 
father  dying  while  the  great  Free-trader  was  still  young, 
Richard  Cobden  was  taken  in  charge  by  an  uncle,  who 
had  a  wholesale  warehouse  in  the  City  of  London,  and  who 
gave  him  employment  here.  Cobden  afterward  became 
a  partner  in  a  Manchester  printed-cotton  factory;  and  he 
travelled  occasionally  on  the  commercial  business  of  this 
establishment.  He  had  a  great  liking  for  travel,  but  not 
by  any  means  as  the  ordinary  tourist  travels;  the  interest 
of  Cobden  was  not  in  scenery,  or  in  art,  or  in  ruins,  but 
in  men.  He  studied  the  condition  of  countries  with  a 
view  to  the  manner  in  which  it  affected  the  men  and 
women  of  the  present,  and  through  them  was  likely  to 
affect  the  future.  On  everything  that  he  saw  he  turned  a 
quick  and  intelligent  eye;  and  he  saw  for  himself  and 
thought  for  himself.  Wherever  he  went  he  wanted  to 
learn  something.  He  had  in  abundance  that  peculiar 
faculty  which  some  great  men  of  widely  different  stamp 
from  him  and  from  each  other  have  possessed ;  of  which 
Goethe  frankly  boasted,  and  which  Mirabeau  had  more 
largely  than  he  was  always  willing  to  acknowledge;  the 
faculty  which  exacts  from  every  one  with  whom  its  owner 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  261 

comes  into  contact  some  contribution  to  his  stock  of  in- 
formation and  to  his  advantage.  Cobden  could  learn 
something  from  everybody.  It  is  doubtful  whether  he 
ever  came  even  into  momentary  acquaintance  with  any 
one  whom  he  did  not  compel  to  yield  him  something  in 
the  way  of  information.  He  travelled  very  widely  for  a 
time,  when  travelling  was  more  difficult  work  than  it  is  at 
present.  He  made  himself  familiar  with  most  of  the 
countries  of  Europe,  with  many  parts  of  the  East,  and, 
what  was  then  a  rarer  accomplishment,  with  the  United 
States  and  Canada.  He  did  not  make  the  familiar  grand 
tour,  and  then  dismiss  the  places  he  had  seen  from  his 
active  memory.  He  studied  them,  and  visited  many  of 
them  again  to  compare  early  with  later  impressions.  This 
was  in  itself  an  education  of  the  highest  value  for  the 
career  he  proposed  to  pursue.  When  he  was  about  thirty 
years  of  age  he  began  to  acquire  a  certain  reputation  as 
the  author  of  pamphlets  directed  against  some  of  the  pet 
doctrines  of  old-fashioned  statesmanship— the  balance  of 
power  in  Europe;  the  necessity  of  maintaining  a  State 
Church  in  Ireland;  the  importance  of  allowing  no  Euro- 
pean quarrel  to  go  on  without  England's  intervention; 
and  similar  dogmas.  Mr.  Cobden 's  opinions  then  were 
very  much  as  they  continued  to  the  day  of  his  death.  He 
seemed  to  have  come  to  the  maturity  of  his  convictions  all 
at  once,  and  to  have  passed  through  no  further  change 
either  of  growth  or  of  decay.  But  whatever  might  be 
said  then  or  now  of  the  doctrines  he  maintained,  there 
could  be  only  one  opinion  as  to  the  skill  and  force  which 
upheld  them  with  pen  as  well  as  tongue.  The  tongue, 
however,  was  his  best  weapon.  If  oratory  were  a  business 
and  not  an  art — that  is,  if  its  test  were  its  success  rather 
than  its  form — then  it  might  be  contended  reasonably 
enough  that  Mr.  Cobden  was  one  of  the  greatest  orators 
England  has  ever  known.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  per- 
suasiveness of  his  style.  His  manner  was  simple,  sweet, 
and  earnest.     It  was  persuasive,  but  it  had  not  the  sort  of 


262  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

persuasiveness  which  is  merely  a  better  kind  of  plausi- 
bility. It  persuaded  by  convincing.  It  was  transparently 
sincere.  The  light  of  its  convictions  shone  all  through  it. 
It  aimed  at  the  reason  and  the  judgment  of  the  listener, 
and  seemed  to  be  convincing  him  to  his  own  interest 
against  his  prejudices.  Cobden's  style  was  almost  exclu- 
sively conversational ;  but  he  had  a  clear,  well-toned  voice, 
with  a  quiet,  unassuming  power  in  it  which  enabled  him 
to  make  his  words  heard  distinctly  and  without  effort  all 
through  the  great  meetings  he  had  often  to  address.  His 
speeches  were  full  of  variety.  He  illustrated  every  argu- 
ment by  something  drawn  from  his  personal  observation 
or  from  reading,  and  his  illustrations  were  always  striking, 
appropriate,  and  interesting.  He  had  a  large  amount  of 
bright  and  winning  humor,  and  he  spoke  the  simplest  and 
purest  English.  He  never  used  an  unnecessary  sentence, 
or  failed  for  a  single  moment  to  make  his  meaning  clear. 
Many  strong  opponents  of  Mr.  Cobden's  opinions  con- 
fessed, even  during  his  lifetime,  that  they  sometimes 
found  with  dismay  their  most  cherished  convictions 
crumbling  away  beneath  his  flow  of  easy  argument.  In 
the  stormy  times  of  national  passion  Mr.  Cobden  was  less 
powerful.  When  the  question  was  one  to  be  settled  by 
the  rules  that  govern  man's  substantial  interests,  or  even 
by  the  standing  rules,  if  such  an  expression  may  be  allowed, 
of  morality,  then  Cobden  was  unequalled.  So  long  as  the 
controversy  could  be  settled  after  this  fashion:  "I  will 
show  you  that  in  such  a  course  you  are  acting  injuriously 
to  your  own  interests;"  or  "You  are  doing  what  a  fair 
and  just  man  ought  not  to  do" — so  long  as  argument  of 
that  kind  could  sway  the  conduct  of  men,  then  there  was 
no  one  who  could  convince  as  Cobden  could.  But  when 
the  hour  and  mood  of  passion  came,  and  a  man  or  a  nation 
said,  "  I  do  not  care  any  longer  whether  this  is  for  my 
interest  or  not — I  don't  care  whether  you  call  it  right  or 
wrong — this  way  my  instincts  drive  me,  and  this  way  I  am 
going" — then  Mr.   Cobden's  teaching,  the  very  perfection 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  26^ 

as  it  was  of  common-sense  and  fair  play,  was  out  of  season. 
It  could  not  answer  feeling  with  feeling.      It  was  not  able 
to  "overcrow,"  in  the  words  of  Shakespeare  and  Spenser, 
one  emotion  by  another.     The  defect  of  Mr.  Cobden's  style 
of  mind  and  temper  is  fitly  illustrated  in  the  deficiency  of 
his  method  of  argument.      His  sort  of  education,  his  modes 
of  observation,  his  way  of  turning   travel  to  account,    all 
went  together  to  make  him  the  man  he  was.     The  apostle 
of  common-sense  and  fair  dealing,  he  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  passions  of  men ;  he  did  not  understand  them ; 
they  passed  for  nothing  in  his  calculations.      11  is  judg- 
ment  of   men    and   of  nations   was  based  far   too   much 
on  his  knowledge  of   his    own    motives    and    character. 
He    knew  that    in    any    given    case    he    could    always 
trust  himself  to  act  the  part  of  a  just  and  prudent  man; 
and   he    assumed  that   all   the  world  could  be  governed 
by  the  rules  of  prudence  and  of  equity.     History  had  little 
interest  for  him,  except  as  it  testified  to  man's  advance- 
ment and  steady  progress,    and  furnished  arguments   to 
show  that  men  prospered  by  liberty,  peace,  and  just  deal- 
ings with  their  neighbors.     He  cared  little  or  nothing  for 
mere  sentiments.      Even  where  these  had  their  root  in 
some  human  tendency  that  was  noble  in  itself,  he  did  not 
reverence  them  if  they  seemed  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
men's  acting  peacefully  and  prudently.   He  did  not  see  why 
the  mere  idea  of  nationality,  for  example,  should  induce 
people  to  disturb  themselves  by  insurrections  and  wars,  so 
long  as  they  were  tolerably  well  governed,  and  allowed  to 
exist  in  peace  and  to  make  an  honest  living.     Thus  he 
never  represented  more  than  half  the  English  character. 
He  was  always  out  of  sympathy  with  his  countrymen  on 
some  great  political  question. 

But  he  seemed  as  if  he  were  designed  by  nature  to  con- 
duct to  success  such  an  agitation  as  that  against  the  Corn- 
laws.  He  found  some  colleagues  who  were  worthy  of 
him.  His  chief  companion  in  the  campaign  was  Mr. 
Bright.     Mr.  Bright's  fame  is  not  so  completely  bound 


264  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

up  with  the  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws,  or  even  with  the  ex- 
tension of  the  suffrage,  as  that  of  Mr.  Cobden.  If  Mr, 
Bright  had  been  on  the  wrong  side  of  every  cause  he 
pleaded ;  if  his  agitation  had  been  as  conspicuous  for  fail- 
ure as  it  was  for  success,  he  would  still  be  famous  among 
English  public  men.  He  was  what  Mr.  Cobden  was  not,  an 
orator  of  the  very  highest  class.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
English  public  life  has  ever  produced  a  man  who  possessed 
more  of  the  qualifications  of  a  great  orator  than  Mr. 
Bright.  He  had  a  commanding  presence;  not,  indeed, 
the  stately  and  colossal  form  of  O'Connell,  but  a  massive 
figure,  a  large  head,  a  handsome  and  expressive  face. 
His  voice  was  powerful,  resonant,  clear,  with  a  peculiar 
vibration  in  it  which  lent  imspeakable  effect  to  any  pas- 
sages of  pathos  or  of  scorn.  His  style  of  speaking  was 
exactly  what  a  conventional  demagogue's  ought  not  to 
be.  It  was  pure  to  austerity ;  it  was  stripped  of  all  super- 
fluous ornament.  It  never  gushed  or  foamed.  It  never 
allowed  itself  to  be  mastered  by  passion.  The  first  pecu- 
liarity that  struck  the  listener  was  its  superb  self-restraint. 
The  orator  at  his  most  powerful  passages  appeared  as  if 
he  were  rather  keeping  in  his  strength  than  taxing  it  with 
effort.  His  voice  was,  for  the  most  part,  calm  and  meas- 
ured ;  he  hardly  ever  indulged  in  much  gesticulation.  He 
never,  under  the  pressure  of  whatever  emotion,  shouted 
or  stormed.  The  fire  of  his  eloquence  was  a  white-heat, 
intense,  consuming,  but  never  sparkling  or  sputtering. 
He  had  an  admirable  gift  of  humor  and  a  keen  ironical 
power.  He  had  read  few  books,  but  of  those  he  read  he 
was  a  master.  The  English  Bible  and  Milton  were  his 
chief  studies.  His  style  was  probably  formed,  for  the  most 
part,  on  the  Bible;  for  although  he  may  have  moulded  his 
general  way  of  thinking  and  his  simple,  strong  morality 
on  the  lessons  he  found  in  Milton,  his  mere  language  bore 
little  trace  of  Milton's  stately  classicism  with  its  Hellenized 
and  Latinized  terminology,  but  was  above  all  things 
Saxon  and  simple.      Bright  was  a  man  of  the  middle  clasa 


Free- Trade  and  the  League.  265 

His  family  were  Quakers  of  a  somewhat  austere  mould. 
They  were  manufacturers  of  carpet  in  Rochdale,  Lanca- 
shire, and  had  made  considerable  money  in  their  business. 
John  Bright,  therefore,  was  raised  above  the  temptations 
which  often  beset  the  eloquent  young-  man  who  takes  up 
a  democratic  cause  in  a  country  like  ours;  and,  as  our 
public  opinion  goes,  it  probably  was  to  his  advantage, 
when  first  he  made  his  appearance  in  Parliament,  that  he 
was  well  known  to  be  a  man  of  some  means,  and  not  a 
clever  arid  needy  adventurer. 

Mr.  Bright  himself  has  given  an  interesting  account  of 
his  first  meeting  with  Mr.  Cobden : 

"The  first  time  I  became  acquainted  with  Mr.  Cobden 
was  in  connection  with  the  great  question  of  education. 
I  went  over  to  Manchester  to  call  upon  him  and  invite  him 
to  come  to  Rochdale  to  speak  at  a  meeting  about  to  be 
held  in  the  school-room  of  the  Baptist  Chapel  in  West 
Street.  I  found  him  in  his  counting-house.  I  told  him 
what  I  wanted;  his  countenance  lighted  up  with  pleasure 
to  find  that  others  were  working  in  the  same  cause.  He, 
without  hesitation,  agreed  to  come.  He  came,  and  he 
spoke;  and  though  he  was  then  so  young  a  speaker,  yet 
the  qualities  of  his  speech  were  such  as  remained  with  him 
so  long  as  he  was  able  to  speak  at  all — clearness,  logic, 
a  conversational  eloquence,  a  persuasiveness  which,  when 
combined  with  the  absolute  truth  there  was  in  his  eye  and 
in  his  countenance,  became  a  power  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible to  resist." 

Still  more  remarkable  is  the  description  Mr.  Bright  has 
given  of  Cobden's  first  appeal  to  him  to  join  in  the  agita- 
tion for  the  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws : 

"  I  was  in  Leamington,  and  Mr.  Cobden  called  on  me. 
I  was  then  in  the  depths  of  grief — I  may  almost  say  of 
despair — for  the  light  and  sunshine  of  my  house  had  been 
extinguished.  All  that  was  left  on  earth  of  my  young 
wife,  except  the  memory  of  a  sainted  life  and  a  too  brief 
happiness,    was  lying  still  and  cold  in  the  chamber  above 


266  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

us.  Mr.  Cobden  called  on  me  as  his  friend  and  addressed 
me,  as  you  may  suppose,  with  words  of  condolence.  After 
a  time  he  looked  up  and  said:  'There  are  thousands  and 
thousands  of  homes  in  England  at  this  moment  where 
wives  and  mothers  and  children  are  dying  of  hunger. 
Now,  when  the  first  paroxysm  of  your  grief  is  passed,  I 
would  advise  you  to  come  with  me,  and  we  will  never  rest 
imtil  the  Corn-laws  are  repealed. '  " 

The  invitation  thus  given  was  cordially  accepted,  and 
from  that  time  dates  the  almost  unique  fellowship  of  these 
two  men,  who  worked  together  in  the  closest  brotherhood, 
who  loved  each  other  as  not  all  brothers  do,  who  were 
associated  so  closely  in  the  public  mind  that  until  Cobden's 
death  the  name  of  one  was  scarcely  ever  mentioned  with- 
out that  of  the  other.  There  was  something  positively 
romantic  about  their  mutual  attachment.  Each  led  a 
noble  life,  each  was  in  his  own  way  a  man  of  genius; 
each  was  simple  and  strong.  Rivalry  between  them  would 
have  been  impossible,  although  they  were  every  day  being 
compared  and  contrasted  by  both  friendly  and  unfriendly 
critics.  Their  gifts  were  admirably  suited  to  make  them 
powerful  allies.  Each  had  something  that  the  other 
wanted.  Bright  had  not  Cobden's  winning  persuasiveness 
nor  his  surprising  ease  and  force  of  argument.  But  Cob- 
den had  not  anything  like  his  companion's  oratorical 
power.  He  had  not  the  tones  of  scorn,  of  pathos,  of 
humor,  and  of  passion.  The  two  together  made  a  genuine 
power  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  on  the  platform. 
Mr.  Kinglake,  who  is  as  little  in  sympathy  with  the  gen- 
eral political  opinions  of  Cobden  and  Bright  as  any  man 
well  could  be,  has  borne  admirable  testimony  to  their 
argumentative  power  and  to  their  influence  over  the 
House  of  Commons:  "These  two  orators  had  shown  with 
what  a  strength,  with  what  a  masterly  skill,  with  what 
patience,  with  what  a  high  courage,  they  could  carry  a 
scientific  truth  through  the  storms  of  politics.  They  had 
shown  that  they  could  arouse  and  govern  the  assenting 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  267 

thousands  who  listened  to  them  with  delight — that  they 
could  bend  the  House  of  Commons — that  they  could  press 
their  creed  upon  a  Prime-minister,  and  put  upon  his  mind 
so  hard  a  stress  that  after  a  while  he  felt  it  to  be  a  torture 
and  a  violence  to  his  reason  to  have  to  make  a  stand 
against  them.  Nay,  more.  Each  of  these  gifted  men  had 
proved  that  he  could  go  bravely  into  the  midst  of  angry 
opponents,  could  show  them  their  fallacies  one  by  one, 
destroy  their  favorite  theories  before  their  very  faces,  and 
triumphantly  argue  them  down."  It  was,  indeed,  a  scien- 
tific truth  which,  in  the  first  instance,  Cobden  and  Bright 
undertook  to  force  upon  the  recognition  of  a  Parliament 
composed  in  great  measure  of  the  very  men  who  were 
taught  to  believe  that  their  own  personal  and  class  inter- 
ests were  bound  up  with  the  maintenance  of  the  existing 
economical  creed.  Those  who  hold  that  because  it  was  a 
scientific  truth  the  task  of  its  advocates  ought  to  have  been 
easy,  will  do  well  to  observe  the  success  of  the  resistance 
which  has  been  thus  far  offered  to  it  in  almost  every 
country  but  England  alone. 

These  men  had  many  assistants  and  lieutenants  well 
worthy  to  act  with  them  and  under  them.  Mr.  W,  J.  Fox, 
for  instance,  a  Unitarian  minister  of  great  popularity  and 
remarkable  eloquence,  seemed  at  one  time  almost  to  divide 
public  admiration  as  an  orator  with  Mr.  Cobden  and  Mr. 
Bright,  Mr.  Milner  Gibson,  who  had  been  a  Tory,  went 
over  to  the  movement,  and  gave  it  the  assistance  of  trained 
Parliamentary  knowledge  and  very  considerable  debating 
skill.  In  the  Lancashire  towns  the  League  had  the 
advantage  of  being  officered,  for  the  most  part,  by  shrewd 
and  sound  men  of  business,  who  gave  their  time  as  freely 
as  they  gave  their  money  to  the  advancement  of  the  cause. 
It  is  curious  to  compare  the  manner  in  which  the  Anti- 
Corn-law  agitation  was  conducted  with  the  manner  in 
which  the  contemporary  agitation  in  Ireland  for  the  repeal 
of  the  Union  was  carried  on.  In  England  the  agitation 
>vas  based  on  the  most  strictly  business  principles.     The 


268  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

leaders  spoke  and  acted  as  if  the  League  itself  were  some 
great  commercial  firm,  which  was  bound,  above  all  things, 
to  fulfil  its  promises  and  keep  to  the  letter  as  well  as  the 
spirit  of  its  engagements.  There  was  no  boasting ;  there 
was  no  exaggeration ;  there  were  no  appeals  to  passion ; 
no  romantic  rousings  of  sentimental  emotion.  The  system 
of  the  agitation  Avas  as  clear,  straightforward,  and  busi- 
ness-like as  its  purpose.  In  Ireland  there  were  monster 
meetings,  with  all  manner  of  dramatic  and  theatric  effects 
— with  rhetorical  exaggeration,  and  vehement  appeal  to 
passion  and  to  ancient  memory  of  suffering.  The  cause 
was  kept  up  from  day  to  day  by  assurances  of  near  success 
so  positive  that  it  is  sometimes  hard  to  believe  those  who 
made  them  could  themselves  have  been  deceived  by  them. 
No  doubt  the  difference  will  be  described  by  many  as  the 
mere  result  of  the  difference  between  the  one  cause  and  the 
other;  between  the  agitation  for  Free-trade,  clear,  tangi- 
ble, and  practical,  and  that  for  repeal  of  the  Union,  with 
its  shadowy  object  and  its  visionary  impulses.  But  a  bet- 
ter explanation  of  the  difference  will  be  found  in  the  differ- 
ent natures  to  which  an  appeal  had  to  be  made.  It  is  not 
by  any  means  certain  that  O'Connell's  cause  was  a  mere 
shadow;  nor  will  it  appear,  if  we  study  the  criticism  of 
the  time,  that  the  guides  of  public  opinion  who  pronounced 
the  repeal  agitation  absurd  and  ludicrous  had  any  better 
words  at  first  for  the  movement  against  the  Corn-law. 
Cobden  and  Bright  on  the  one  side,  O'Connell  on  the 
other,  knew  the  audiences  they  had  to  address.  It  would 
have  been  impossible  to  stir  the  blood  of  the  Lancashire 
artisan  by  means  of  the  appeals  which  went  to  the  very 
heart  of  the  dreamy,  sentimental,  impassioned  Celt  of  the 
South  of  Ireland.  The  Munster  peasant  would  have 
understood  little  of  such  clear,  penetrating,  business-like 
argument  as  that  by  which  Cobden  and  Bright  enforced 
their  doctrines.  Had  O'Connell's  cause  been  as  practical 
and  its  success  been  as  immediately  attainable  as  that  of 
the  Anti-Corn-Law  League,  the  great  Irish  agitator  would 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  26() 

still  have  had  to  address  his  followers  in  a  different  tone 
of  appeal.  "All  men  are  not  alike,"  says  the  Norman 
butler  to  the  Flemish  soldier  in  Scott's  "  Betrothed ;" 
*'  that  which  will  but  warm  your  Flemish  hearts  will  put 
wildfire  into  Norman  brains;  and  what  may  only  encour- 
age your  countrymen  to  man  the  walls,  will  make  ours  fly 
over  the  battlements."  The  most  impassioned  Celt,  how- 
ever, will  admit  that  in  the  Anti-Corn-law  movement  of 
-Cobden  and  Bright,  with  its  rigid  truthfulness  and  its 
strict  proportion  between  capacity  and  promise,  there  was 
an  entirely  new  dignity  lent  to  popular  agitation  w^hich 
raised  it  to  the  condition  of  statesmanship  in  the  rough. 
The  Reform  agitation  in  England  had  not  been  conducted 
without  some  exaggeration,  much  appeal  to  passion,  and 
some  not  by  many  means  indistinct  allusions  to  the  reserve 
of  popular  force  which  might  be  called  into  action  if 
legislators  and  peers  proved  insensible  to  argument.  The 
era  of  the  Anti-Corn-law  movement  was  a  new  epoch  alto- 
gether in  English  political  controversy. 

The  League,  however,  successful  as  it  might  be  through- 
out the  country,  had  its  great  work  to  do  in  Parliament. 
The  Free-trade  leaders  must  have  found  their  hearts  sink 
within  them  when  they  came  sometimes  to  confront  that 
fortress  of  traditions  and  of  vested  rights.  Even  after  the 
change  made  in  favor  of  manufacturing  and  middle-class 
interests  by  the  Reform  Bill,  the  House  of  Commons  was 
still  composed,  as  to  nine-tenths  of  its  whole  number,  by 
representatives  of  the  landlords.  The  entire  House  of 
Lords  then  was  constituted  of  the  owners  of  land.  All 
tradition,  all  prestige,  all  the  dignity  of  aristocratic  insti- 
tutions, seemed  to  be  naturally  arrayed  against  the  new 
movement,  conducted  as  it  was  by  manufacturers  and 
traders  for  the  benefit,  seemingly,  of  trade  and  those 
whom  it  employed.  The  artisan  population,  who  might 
have  been  formidable  as  a  disturbing  element,  were,  on 
the  whole,  rather  against  the  Free-traders  than  for  them. 
Nearly  all  the  great  official  leaders  had  to  be  converted  to 


270  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

the  doctrines  of  Free-trade.  Many  of  the  Whigs  were 
willing  enough  to  admit  the  case  of  Free-trade  as  the 
young  Scotch  lady  mentioned  by  Sydney  Smith  admitted 
the  case  of  love,  "  in  the  abstract ;"  but  they  could  not 
recognize  the  possibility  of  applying  it  in  the  complicated 
financial  conditions  of  an  artificial  system  like  ours.  Some 
of  the  Whigs  were  in  favor  of  a  fixed  duty  in  place  of  the 
existing  sliding-scale.  The  leaders  of  the  movement  had, 
indeed,  to  resist  a  very  dangerous  temptation  coming  from 
statesmen  who  professed  to  be  in  accordance  with  them  as 
to  the  mere  principle  of  protection,  but  who  were  always 
endeavoring  to  persuade  them  that  they  had  better  accept 
any  decent  compromise,  and  not  push  their  demands  to  ex- 
tremes. The  witty  peer  who  in  a  former  generation 
answered  an  advocate  of  moderate  reform  by  asking  him 
what  he  thought  of  moderate  chastity,  might  have  had 
many  opportunities,  if  he  had  been  engaged  in  the  Free- 
trade  movement,  of  turning  his  epigram  to  account. 

Mr.  Macaulay,  for  instance,  wrote  to  the  electors  of 
Edinburgh  to  remonstrate  with  them  on  what  he  consid- 
ered their  fanatical  and  uncompromising  adherence  to  the 
principle  of  Free-trade.  "In  my  opinion,"  Mr.  Macaulay 
wrote  to  his  constituents,  "  you  are  all  wrong — not  because 
you  think  all  protection  bad,  for  I  think  so  too;  not  even 
because  you  avow  your  opinion  and  attempt  to  propagate 
it,  for  I  have  always  done  the  same,  and  shall  do  the 
same;  but  because,  being  in  a  situation  where  your  only 
hope  is  in  a  compromise,  you  refuse  to  hear  of  comprom- 
ise ;  because,  being  in  a  situation  where  every  person  who 
will  go  a  step  with  you  on  the  right  road  ought  to  be 
cordially  welcomed,  you  drive  from  you  those  who  are 
willing  and  desirous  to  go  with  you  half-way.  To  this 
policy  I  will  be  no  party.  I  will  not  abandon  those  with 
whom  I  have  hitherto  acted,  and  without  whose  help  I 
am  confident  that  no  great  improvement  can  be  effected, 
for  an  object  purely  selfish."  It  had  not  occurred  to  Mr. 
ilacaulay  that  any  party  but  the  Whigs  could  bring  in  any 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  271 

measure  of  fiscal  or  other  reform  worth  the  having;  and, 
indeed,  he  probably  thought  it  would  be  something  like 
an  act  of  ingratitude  amounting  to  a  species  of  sacrilege 
to  accept  reform  from  any  hands  but  those  of  its  recog- 
nized Whig  patrons.  The  Anti -Corn-law  agitation  intro- 
duced a  game  of  politics  into  England  which  astonished 
and  considerably  discomfited  steady-going  politicians  like 
Macaulay.  The  League  men  did  not  profess  to  be  bound 
by  any  indefeasible  bond  of  allegiance  to  the  Whig  party. 
They  were  prepared  to  co-operate  with  any  party  whatever 
which  would  undertake  to  abolish  the  Corn-laws.  Their 
agitation  would  have  done  some  good  in  this  way,  if  in 
no  other  sense.  It  introduced  a  more  robust  and  inde- 
pendent spirit  into  political  life.  It  is  almost  ludicrous 
sometimes  to  read  the  diatribes  of  supporters  of  Lord 
Melbourne's  Government,  for  example,  against  any  one 
who  should  presume  to  think  that  any  object  in  the  mind 
of  a  true  patriot,  or  at  least  of  a  true  Liberal,  could  equal 
in  importance  that  of  keeping  the  Melbourne  Ministry  in 
power.  Great  reforms  have  been  made  by  Conservative 
governments  in  our  own  days,  because  the  new  political 
temper  which  was  growing  up  in  England  refused  to  affirm 
that  the  patent  of  reform  rested  in  the  possession  of  any 
particular  party,  and  that  if  the  holders  of  the  monopoly 
did  not  find  it  convenient  or  were  not  in  the  humor  to 
use  it  any  further  just  then,  no  one  else  must  venture  to 
interfere  in  the  matter,  or  to  imdertake  the  duty  which 
they  had  declined  to  perform.  At  the  time  that  Macaulay 
wrote  his  letter,  however,  it  had  not  entered  into  the  mind 
of  any  Whig  to  believe  it  possible  that  the  repeal  of  the 
Corn -laws  was  to  be  the  work  of  a  great  Conservative 
minister,  done  at  the  bidding  of  two  Radical  politicians. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League 
were  not  in  the  least  discouraged  by  the  accession  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel  to  power.  To  them  the  fixed  duty  proposed 
by  Lord  John  Russell  was  as  objectionable  as  Peel's  slid- 
jng-scale.     Their  hopes  seem  rather  to  have  gone  up  than 


272  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

gone  down  when  the  minister  came  into  power  whose  ad- 
herents, unlike  those  of  Lord  John  Russell,  were  absolutely 
against  the  very  principle  of  Free-trade.  It  is  of  some 
importance,  in  estimating  the  morality  of  the  course  pur- 
sued by  Peel,  to  observe  the  opinion  formed  of  his  profes- 
sions and  his  probable  purposes  by  the  shrewd  men  who 
led  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  The  grand  charge  against 
Peel  is  that  he  betrayed  his  party ;  that  he  induced  them 
to  continue  their  allegiance  to  him  on  the  promise  that  he 
would  never  concede  the  principle  of  Free-trade;  and  that 
he  used  his  power  to  establish  Free-trade  when  the  time 
came  to  choose  between  it  and  a  surrender  of  office.  Now 
it  is  certain  that  the  League  always  regarded  Sir  Robert 
Peel  as  a  Free-trader  in  heart ;  as  one  who  fully  admitted 
the  principle  of  Free-trade,  but  who  did  not  see  his  way 
just  then  to  deprive  the  agricultural  interest  of  the  protec- 
tion on  which  they  had  for  so  many  years  been  allowed 
and  encouraged  to  lean.  In  the  debate  after  the  general 
election  of  1841 — the  debate  which  turned  out  the  Mel- 
bourne Ministry — Mr.  Cobden,  then  for  the  first  time  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  said:  "I  am  a  Free- 
trader; I  call  myself  neither  Whig  nor  Tory.  I  am  proud 
to  acknowledge  the  virtue  of  the  Whig  Ministry  in  com- 
ing out  from  the  ranks  of  the  monopolists  and  advancing 
three  parts  out  of  four  in  my  own  direction.  Yet  if  the 
right  honorable  baronet  opposite  (Sir  R.  Peel)  advances 
one  step  farther,  I  will  be  the  first  to  meet  him  half-way 
and  shake  hands  with  him."  Some  years  later  Mr.  Cob- 
den said,  at  Birmingham,  "  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Sir  Robert  Peel  is  at  heart  as  good  a  Free-trader  as  I  am. 
He  has  told  us  so  in  the  House  of  Commons  again  and 
again ;  nor  do  I  doubt  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  has  in  his  in- 
most heart  the  desire  to  be  the  man  who  shall  carry  out 
the  principles  of  Free-trade  in  this  country."  Sir  Robert 
Peel  had,  indeed,  as  Mr.  Cobden  said,  again  and  again  in 
Parliament  expressed  his  conviction  as  to  the  general  truth 
of  the  principles  of  Free-trade.     In  1842,  he  declared  it  to 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  27"^ 

be  utterly  beyond  the  power  of  Parliament,  and  a  mer.T 
delusion,  to  say  that  by  any  duty,  fixed  or  otherwise,  :i 
certain  price  could  be  guaranteed  to  the  producer.  In  the 
same  year  he  expressed  his  belief  that  "  on  the  general 
principle  of  Free-trade  there  is  now  no  great  difference  of 
opinion,  and  that  all  agree  in  the  general  rule  that  we 
should  buy  in  the  cheapest  and  sell  in  the  dearest  market. " 
This  expression  of  opinion  called  forth  an  ironical  cheer 
from  the  benches  of  opposition.  Peel  knew  well  what  the 
cheer  was  meant  to  convey.  He  knew  it  meant  to  ask  him 
why,  then,  he  did  not  allow  the  country  to  buy  its  grain 
in  the  cheapest  market.  He  promptly  added — "  I  know 
the  meaning  of  that  cheer.  I  do  not  wish  to  raise  a  dis- 
cussion on  the  Corn-laws  or  the  Sugar  Duties,  which  I 
contend,  however,  are  exceptions  to  the  general  rule,  and 
I  will  not  go  into  that  question  now."  The  press  of  the 
day,  whether  for  or  against  Peel,  commented  upon  his 
declarations  and  his  measures  as  indicating  clearly  that 
the  bent  of  his  mind  was  toward  Free-trade  even  in  grain. 
At  all  events,  he  had  reached  that  mental  condition  when 
he  regarded  the  case  of  grain,  like  that  of  sugar,  as  a  nec- 
essary exception,  for  the  time,  to  the  operation  of  a  gen- 
eral rule. 

It  ought  to  have  been  obvious  that  if  exceptional  circum- 
stances should  arise,  pulling  more  strongly  in  the  direction 
of  the  League,  Sir  Robert  Peel's  own  explicit  declara- 
tions must  bind  him  to  recognize  the  necessity  of  applying 
*he  Free-trade  principles  even  to  corn.  "  Sir  Robert  Peel," 
says  his  cousin.  Sir  Laurence  Peel,  in  a  sketch  of  the  life 
and  character  of  the  great  statesman,  "had  been,  as  I  have 
said,  always  a  Free-trader.  The  questions  to  which  he 
had  declined  to  apply  those  principles  had  been  viewed  by 
him  as  exceptional.  The  Corn-law  had  been  so  treated  by 
many  able  exponents  of  the  principles  of  Free-trade."  Sir 
Robert  Peel  himself  has  left  it  on  record  that  during  the 
discussions  on  the  Corn-law  of  1842  he  was  more  than  once 
pressed  to  give  a  guarantee,  "  so  far  as  a  minister  could 
Vol.  I.— 18 


274  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

give  it, "  that  the  amount  of  protection  established  by  that 
law  should  be  permanently  adhered  to;  "but  although  I 
did  not  then  contemplate  the  necessity  for  further  change, 
I  uniformly  refused  to  fetter  the  discretion  of  the  Govern- 
ment by  any  such  assurances  as  those  that  were  required 
of  me."  It  is  evident  that  the  condition  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel's  opinions  was,  even  as  far  back  as  1842,  something 
very  different  indeed  from  that  of  the  ordinary  county 
member  or  pledged  Protectionist,  and  that  Peel  had  done 
all  he  could  to  make  this  clear  to  his  party.  A  minister 
who,  in  1842,  refused  to  fetter  the  discretion  of  his  Gov- 
ernment in  dealing  with  the  protection  of  home-grown 
grain  ought  not,  on  the  face  of  things,  to  be  accused  of 
violating  his  pledges  and  betraying  his  party  if,  four  years 
later,  under  the  pressure  of  extraordinary  circumstances, 
he  made  up  his  mind  to  the  abolition  of  such  a  protection. 
Let  us  test  this  in  a  manner  that  will  be  familiar  to  our 
own  time.  Suppose  a  Prime-minister  is  pressed  by  some 
of  his  own  party  to  give  the  House  of  Commons  a  guaran- 
tee, "  so  far  as  a  minister  could  give  it,"  that  the  principle 
of  the  State  Church  Establishment  in  England  shall  be  per- 
manently adhered  to.  He  declines  to  fetter  the  discretion 
of  the  Government  in  the  future.  Is  it  not  evident  that 
such  an  answer  would  be  taken  by  nine  out  of  ten  of  his 
listeners  to  be  ominous  of  some  change  to  the  Established 
Church?  If  four  years  after  the  same  minister  were  to 
propose  to  disestablish  the  Church,  he  might  be  denounced 
and  he  might  even  be  execrated,  but  no  one  could  fairly 
accuse  him  of  having  violated  his  pledge  and  betrayed  his 
party. 

The  country  party,  however,  did  not  understand  Sir 
Robert  Peel  as  their  opponents  and  his  assuredly  under- 
stood him.  They  did  not  at  this  time  believe  in  the  pos- 
sibility of  any  change.  Free-trade  was  to  them  little  more 
than  an  abstraction.  They  did  not  much  care  who  preached 
it  out  of  Parliament.  They  were  convinced  that  the  state 
of  things  they  saw  around  them  when  they  were  boys 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  275 

would  continue  to  the  end.  They  looked  on  Mr.  Villiers 
and  his  annual  motion  in  favor  of  Free-trade  very  much 
as  a  stout  old  Tory  of  later  times  might  regard  the  annual 
motion  for  woman  suffrage.  Both  parties  in  the  House — ■ 
that  is  to  say,  both  of  the  parties  from  whom  ministers 
were  taken — alike  set  themselves  against  the  introduction 
of  any  such  measure.  The  supporters  of  it  were,  with  one 
exception,  not  men  of  family  and  rank.  It  was  agitated 
for  a  good  deal  out-of-doors,  but  agitation  had  not  up  to 
that  time  succeeded  in  making  much  way  even  with  a  re- 
formed Parliament.  The  country  party  observed  that 
some  men  among  the  two  leading  sets  went  farther  in 
favor  of  the  abstract  principle  than  others:  but  it  did  not 
seem  to  them  that  that  really  affected  the  practical  ques- 
tion very  much.  In  1842  Mr.  Disraeli  himself  was  one  of 
those  who  stood  up  for  the  Free-trade  principle,  and  in- 
sisted that  it  had  been  rather  the  inherited  principle  of 
the  Conservatives  than  of  the  Whigs.  Country  gentlemen 
did  not,  therefore,  greatly  concern  themselves  about  the 
practical  work  doing  in  Manchester,  or  the  professions  of 
abstract  opinion  so  often  made  in  Parliament.  They  did 
not  see  that  the  mind  of  their  leader  was  avowedly  in  a 
progressive  condition  on  the  subject  of  Free-trade.  Be- 
cause they  could  not  bring  themselves  to  question  for  a 
moment  the  principle  of  protection  for  home-grown  grain, 
they  made  up  their  minds  that  it  was  a  principle  as  sacred 
with  him.  Against  that  conviction  no  evidence  could  re- 
vail.  It  was  with  them  a  point  of  conscience  and  honor ;  it 
would  have  seemed  an  insult  to  their  leader  to  believe 
even  his  own  words,  if  these  seemed  to  say  that  it  was  a 
mere  question  of  expediency,  convenience,  and  time  with 
him. 

Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better  if  Sir  Robert  Peel  had 
devoted  himself  more  directly  to  what  Mr.  Disraeli  after- 
ward called  educating  his  party.  Perhaps  if  he  had  made  it 
part  of  his  duty  as  a  leader  to  prepare  the  minds  of  his  fol- 
lowers for  the  fact  that  protection  for  grain,  having  ceased 


276  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

to  be  tenable  as  an  economic  principle,  would  possibly  some 
day  have  to  be  given  up  as  a  practice,  he  might  have  taken 
his  party  along  with  him.  He  might  have  been  able  to 
show  them,  as  the  events  have  shown  them  since,  that  the 
introduction  of  free  corn  would  be  a  blessing  to  the  popula- 
tion of  England  in  general,  and  would  do  nothing  but 
good  for  the  landed  interest  as  well.  The  influence  of 
Peel  at  that  time,  and  indeed  all  through  his  administra- 
tion lip  to  the  introduction  of  his  Free-trade  measures,  was 
limitless,  so  far  as  his  party  were  concerned.  He  could 
have  done  anything  with  them.  Indeed,  we  find  no  evi- 
dence so  clear  to  prove  that  Peel  had  not  in  1842  made  up 
his  mind  to  the  introduction  of  Free-trade  as  the  fact  that 
he  did  not  at  once  begin  to  educate  his  party  to  it.  This 
is  to  be  regretted.  The  measure  might  have  been  passed 
by  common  accord.  There  is  something  not  altogether 
without  pathetic  influence  in  the  thought  of  that  country 
party  whom  Peel  had  led  so  long,  and  who  adored  him  so 
thoroughly,  turning  away  from  him  and  against  him,  and 
mournfully  seeking  another  leader.  There  is  something 
pathetic  in  the  thought  that,  rightly  or  wrongly,  they 
should  have  believed  themselves  betrayed  by  their  chief. 
But  Peel,  to  begin  with,  was  a  reserved,  cold,  somewhat 
awkward  man.  He  was  not  effusive;  he  did  not  pour  out 
his  emotions  and  reveal  all  his  changes  of  opinion  in  bursts 
of  confidence  even  to  his  habitual  associates.  He  brooded 
over  these  things  in  his  own  mind ;  he  gave  such  expres- 
sion to  them  in  open  debate  as  any  passing  occasion 
seemed  strictly  to  call  for;  and  he  assumed,  perhaps,  that 
the  gradual  changes  operating  in  his  views  when  thus  ex- 
pressed were  understood  by  his  followers.  Above  all,  it 
is  probable  that  Peel  himself  did  not  see  until  almost  the 
last  moment  that  the  time  had  actually  come 'when  the 
principle  of  protection  must  give  way  to  other  and  more 
weighty  claims.  In  his  speech  announcing  his  intended 
legislation  in  1846,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  with  a  proud  frank- 
ness  which  was   characteristic   of   him,   denied    that   his 


Free-Trade  and  the  League.  277 

altered  course  of  action  was  due  exclusively  to  the  failure 
of  the  potato  crop  and  the  dread  of  famine  in  Ireland.     "  I 
will  not,"  he  said,  "withhold  the  homage  which  is  due  to 
the  progress  of  reason  and  of  truth  by  denying  that  my 
opinions  on  the  subject  of  Protection  have  undergone  a 
change.    ...      I  will  not  direct  the  course  of  the  vessel  by 
observations  taken  in  1842."     But  it  is  probable  that  if  the 
Irish  famine  had  not  threatened,  the  moment  for  introduc- 
ing the  new  legislation  might  have  been  indefinitely  post- 
poned.    The  prospects  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  did 
not  look  by  any  means  bright  when  the  session  preceding 
the  introduction  of  the  Free-trade  legislation  came  to  an 
end.     The  number  of  votes  that  the  League  could  count 
on  in  Parliament  did  not  much  exceed  that  which  the  ad- 
vocates of  Home  Rule  have  been  able  to  reckon  up  in  our 
day.     Nothing  in  1843  or  in  the  earlier  part  of  1845  pointed 
to  any  immediate  necessity  for  Sir  Robert  Peel's  testing 
the  progress  of  his  own  convictions  by  reducing  them  into 
the  shape  of  practical  action.      It  is,  therefore,  not  hard  to 
imderstand  how  even  a  far-seeing  and  conscientious  states- 
man, busy  with  the  practical  work  of  each  day,  might  have 
put  off  taking  definite  counsel  with  himself  as  to  the  in- 
troduction of  measures  for  which  just  then  there  seemed 
no  special  necessity,  and  which  could  hardly  be  introduced 
without  bitter  controversy. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

FAMINE    FORCES    PEEL's    HAND. 

We  see  how  the  two  great  parties  of  the  State  stood  with 
regard  to  this  question  of  Free-trade.  The  Whigs  were 
steadily  gravitating  toward  it.  Their  leaders  did  not  quite 
see  their  way  to  accept  it  as  a  principle  of  practical  states- 
manship, but  it  was  evident  that  their  acceptance  of  it  was 
only  a  question  of  time,  and  of  no  long  time.  The  leader 
of  the  Tory  party  was  being  drawn  day  by  day  more  in  the 
same  direction.  Both  leaders,  Russell  and  Peel,  had  gone 
as  far  as  to  admit  the  general  principle  of  Free-trade. 
Peel  had  contended  that  grain  was,  in  England,  a  neces- 
sary exception ;  Russell  was  not  of  opinion  that  the  time 
had  come  when  it  could  be  treated  otherwise  than  as  an 
exception.  The  Free-trade  party,  small,  indeed,  in  its 
Parliamentary  force,  but  dail)''  growing  more  and  more 
powerful  with  the  country,  would  take  nothing  from  either 
leader  but  Free-trade  sans  phrase  j  and  would  take  that 
from  either  leader  without  regard  to  partisan  considera- 
tions. It  is  evident  to  anyone  who  knows  anything  of  the 
working  of  our  system  of  government  by  party,  that  this 
must  soon  have  ended  in  one  or  other  of  the  two  great 
ruling  parties  forming  an  alliance  with  the  Free-traders. 
If  unforeseen  events  had  not  interposed,  it  is  probable  that 
conviction  would  first  have  fastened  on  the  minds  of  the 
Whigs,  and  that  they  would  have  had  the  honor  of  abolish- 
ing the  Corn-laws.  They  were  out  of  office,  and  did  not 
seem  likely  to  get  back  soon  to  it  by  their  own  power,  and 
the  Free-trade  party  would  have  come  in  time  to  be  a  very 
desirable  ally.  It  would  be  idle  to  pretend  to  doubt  that 
the  convictions  of  political  parties  are  hastened  on  a  good 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand.  279 

deal  under  our  system  by  the  yearning  of  those  who  are 
out  of  office  to  get  the  better  of  those  who  are  in.  States- 
men in  England  are  converted  as  Henry  of  Navarre  became 
Catholic:  we  do  not  say  that  they  actually  change  their 
opinions  for  the  sake  of  making  themselves  eligible  for 
power,  but  a  change  which  has  been  growing  up  imper- 
ceptibly, and  which  might  otherwise  have  taken  a  long 
time  to  declare  itself,  is  stimulated  thus  to  confess  itself 
and  come  out  into  the  light.  But  in  the  case  of  the  Anti- 
Corn-law  agitation,  an  event  over  which  political  parties 
had  no  control  intervened  to  spur  the  intent  of  the  Prime- 
minister.  Mr.  Bright,  many  years  after,  when  pronounc- 
ing the  eulogy  of  his  dead  friend  Cobden,  described  what 
happened  in  a  fine  sentence :  "  Famine  itself,  against  which 
we  had  warred,  joined  us."  In  the  autumn  of  1845  the 
potato  rot  began  in  Ireland. 

The  vast  majority  of  the  working  population  of  Ireland 
were  known  to  depend  absolutely  on  the  potato  for  sub- 
sistence. In  the  northern  province,  where  the  population 
were  of  Scotch  extraction,  the  oatmeal,  the  brose  of  their 
ancestors,  still  supplied  the  staple  of  their  food;  but  in  the 
southern  and  western  provinces  a  large  proportion  of  the 
peasantry  actually  lived  on  the  potato,  and  the  potato 
alone.  In  these  districts  whole  generations  grew  up, 
lived,  married,  and  passed  away,  without  having  ever 
tasted  flesh  meat.  It  was  evident,  then,  that  a  failure  in 
the  potato  crop  would  be  equivalent  to  famine.  Many  of 
the  laboring  class  received  little  or  no  money  wages.  They 
lived  on  what  was  called  the  "  cottier  tenant  system  ;"  that 
is  to  say,  a  man  worked  for  a  land-owner  on  condition  of 
getting  the  use  of  a  little  scrap  of  land  for  himself  on 
which  to  grow  potatoes  to  be  the  sole  food  of  himself  and 
his  family.  The  news  came,  in  the  autumn  of  1845,  that 
the  long  continuance  of  sunless  wet  and  cold  had  im- 
periled, if  not  already  destroyed,  the  food  of  a  people. 

The  cabinet  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  held  hasty  meetings 
<?losely  following  each  other.     People  began  to  ask  whether 


28o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Parliament  was  about  to  be  called  together,  and  whether 
the  Government  had  resolved  on  a  bold  policy.  The  Anti- 
Corn- Law  League  were  clamoring  for  the  opening  of  the 
ports.  The  Prime-minister  himself  was  strongly  in  favor 
of  such  a  course.  He  urged  upon  his  colleagues  that  all 
restrictions  upon  the  importation  of  foreign  corn  should  be 
suspended  either  by  an  Order  in  Council,  or  by  calling 
Parliament  together  and  recommending  such  a  measure 
from  the  throne.  It  is  now  known  that  in  offering  this 
advice  to  his  colleagues  Peel  accompanied  it  with  the  ex- 
pression of  a  doubt  as  to  whether  it  would  ever  be  possible 
to  restore  the  restrictions  that  had  once  been  suspended. 
Indeed,  this  doubt  must  have  filled  every  mind.  The 
League  were  openly  declaring  that  one  reason  why  they 
called  for  the  opening  of  the  ports  was  that,  once  opened, 
they  never  could  be  closed  again.  The  doubt  was  enough 
for  some  of  the  colleagues  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  It  seems 
marvellous  now  how  responsible  statesmen  could  struggle 
for  the  retention  of  restrictions  which  were  so  unpopular 
and  indefensible  that  if  they  were  once  suspended,  under 
the  pressure  of  no  matter  what  exceptional  necessity,  they 
never  could  be  reimposed.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  and 
Lord  Stanley,  however,  opposed  the  idea  of  opening  the 
ports,  and  the  proposal  fell  through.  The  Cabinet  merely 
resolved  on  appointing  a  commission,  consisting  of  the 
heads  of  departments  in  Ireland,  to  take  some  steps  to 
guard  against  a  sudden  outbreak  of  famine,  and  the  thought 
of  an  autumnal  session  was  abandoned.  Sir  Robert  Peel 
himself  has  thus  tersely  described  the  manner  in  which 
his  proposals  were  received :  "  The  cabinet  by  a  very  con- 
siderable majority  declined  giving  its  assent  to  the  pro- 
posals which  I  thus  made  to  them.  They  were  supported 
by  only  three  members  of  the  cabinet — the  Earl  of  Aber- 
deen, Sir  James  Graham,  and  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert.  The 
other  members  of  the  cabinet,  some  on  the  ground  of  ob- 
jection to  the  principle  of  the  measures  recommended, 
others  upon  the  ground  that  there  was  not  yet  sufficient 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand.  281 

evidence  of  the  necessity  for  them,  withheld  their  sanc- 
tion." 

The  great  cry  all  through  Ireland  was  for  the  opening 
of  the  ports.  The  Mansion  House  Relief  Committee  of 
Dublin  issued  a  series  of  resolutions  declaring  their  con- 
viction, from  the  most  undeniable  evidence,  that  consider- 
ably more  than  one-third  of  the  entire  potato  crop  in  Ire- 
land had  been  already  destroyed  by  the  disease,  and  that 
the  disease  had  not  ceased  its  ravages,  but  on  the  contrary 
was  daily  expanding  more  and  more.  "  No  reasonable 
conjecture  can  be  formed,"  the  resolutions  went  on  to 
state,  *'  with  respect  to  the  limit  of  its  effects  short  of  the 
destruction  of  the  entire  remaining  crop;"  and  the  docu- 
ment concluded  with  a  denimciation  of  the  ministry  for 
not  opening  the  ports  or  calling  Parliament  together  before 
the  usual  time  for  its  assembling. 

Two  or  three  days  after  the  issue  of  these  resolutions 
Lord  John  Russell  wrote  a  letter  from  Edinburgh  to  his 
constituents,  the  electors  of  the  City  of  London — a  letter 
which  is  one  of  the  historical  documents  of  the  reign.  It 
announced  his  unqualified  conversion  to  the  principles  of 
the  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  The  failure  of  the  potato  crop 
was,  of  course,  the  immediate  occasion  of  this  letter. 
"Indecision  and  procrastination,"  Lord  John  Russell 
wrote,  "may  produce  a  state  of  suffering  which  it  is 
frightful  to  contemplate.  ...  It  is  no  longer  worth 
while  to  contend  for  a  fixed  duty.  In  1841  the  Free-trade 
part)''  would  have  agreed  to  a  duty  of  d>s.  per  quarter  on 
wheat,  and  after  a  lapse  of  years  this  duty  might  have 
been  further  reduced,  and  ultimately  abolished.  But  the 
imposition  of  any  duty  at  present,  without  a  provision  for 
its  extinction  within  a  short  period,  would  but  prolong  a 
contest  already  sufficiently  fruitful  of  animosity  and  dis- 
content." Lord  John  Russell  then  invited  a  general  un- 
derstanding, to  put  an  end  to  a  system  "  which  has  been 
proved  to  be  the  blight  of  commerce,  the  bane  of  agricul- 
ture, the  source  of  bitter  division  among  classes,  the  cause 


282  A  History  of  Our  Oum  Times.  i 

of  penury,  fever,  mortality,  and  crime  among  the  people." 
Then  the  writer  added  a  significant  remark  to  the  effect 
that  the  Government  appeared  to  be  waiting  for  some  ex- 
cuse to  give  up  the  present  Corn-law,  and  urging  the  peo- 
ple to  afford  them  all  the  excuse  they  could  desire,  "  by 
petition,  by  address,  by  remonstrance." 

Peel  himself  has  told  us  in  his  Memoirs  what  was  the 
effect  which  this  letter  produced  upon  his  own  councils. 
It  "could  not,"  he  points  out,  "fail  to  exercise  a  very 
material  influence  on  the  public  mind,  and  on  the  subject- 
matter  of  our  deliberations  in  the  cabinet.  It  justified  the 
conclusion  that  the  Whig  party  was  prepared  to  unite  with 
the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  in  demanding  the  total  repeal 
of  the  Corn-laws."  Peel  would  not  consent  now  to  pro- 
pose simply  an  opening  of  the  ports.  It  would  seem,  he 
thought,  a  mere  submission  to  accept  the  minimum  of  the 
terms  ordered  by  the  Whig  leader.  That  would  have  been 
well  enough  when  he  first  recommended  it  to  his  cabinet; 
and  if  it  could  then  have  been  offered  to  the  country  as 
the  spontaneous  movement  of  a  united  ministry,  it  would 
have  been  becoming  of  the  emergency  and  of  the  men. 
But  to  do  this  now  would  be  futile ;  would  seem  like  trifling 
with  the  question.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  therefore,  recom- 
mended to  his  cabinet  an  early  meeting  of  Parliament  with 
the  view  of  bringing  forward  some  measure  equivalent  to 
a  speedy  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws. 

The  recommendation  was  wise;  it  was,  indeed,  indis- 
pensable. Yet  it  is  hard  to  think  that  an  impartial  pos- 
terity will  form  a  very  lofty  estimate  of  the  wisdom  with 
which  the  counsels  of  the  two  great  English  parties  were 
guided  in  this  momentous  emergency.  Neither  Whigs 
nor  Tories  appear  to  have  formed  a  judgment  because  of 
facts  or  principles,  but  only  in  deference  to  the  political 
necessities  of  the  hour.  Sir  Robert  Peel  himself  denied 
that  it  was  the  resistless  hand  of  famine  in  Ireland  which 
had  brought  him  to  his  resolve  that  the  Corn-laws  ought  to 
be  abolished.     He  grew  into  the  conviction  that  they  were 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand.  285 

bad  in  principle.      Lord  John  Russell  had  long  been  grow- 
ing into  the  same  conviction.      Yet  the  League  had  been 
left  to  divide  with  but  small  numbers  against  overwhelm- 
ing majorities  made  up  of  both  parties,  until  the  very  ses- 
sion before  Peel  proposed  to  repeal  the  Corn  laws.     Lord 
Beaconsfield,  indeed,  indulges  in  something  like  exaggera- 
tion when  he  says,  in  his  "  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck," 
that  the  close  of  the  session  of   1845   found  the  League 
nearly  reduced  to  silence.     But  it  is  not  untrue  that,  as  he 
says,  "  the  Manchester  confederates  seemed  to  be  least  in 
favor  with  Parliament  and  the  country  on  the  very  eve  of 
their  triumph."     "They  lost  at  the  same  time  elections 
and  the  ear  of  the  House ;  and  the  cause  of  total  and  im- 
mediate repeal  seemed  in  a  not  less  hopeless  position  than 
when,  under  circumstances  of  infinite  difficulty,  it  was  first 
and  solely  upheld  by  the  terse  eloquence  and  vivid  percep- 
tion   of  Charles  Villiers."      Lord    Beaconsfield   certainly 
ought  to  know  what  cause  had  and  what  had  not  the  ear 
of  the  House  of  Commons  at  that  time ;  and  yet  we  venture 
to  doubt,   even   after  his  assurance,  whether  the  League 
and   its  speakers  had  in  any  way  found  their  hold  on  the 
atter.tion   of    Parliament   diminishing.      But   the   loss   of 
elections  is  beyond  dispute.     It  is  a  fact  alluded  to  in  the 
very  letter  from  Lord  John  Russell  which  was  creating  so 
much  commotion.     "It  is  not  to  be  denied,"  Lord  John 
Russell  writes,  "  that  many  elections  for  cities  and  towns 
in  1841,  and  some  in  1845,  appear  to  favor  the  assertion 
that  Free-trade  is  not  popular  with  the  great  mass  of  the 
community. "     This  is,  from  whatever  cause,  a  very  com- 
mon phenomenon  in  our  political  history.     A  movement 
which  began  with  the  promise  of  sweeping  all  before  it 
seems  after   a  while  to  lose  its  force,  and  is  supposed  by 
many  observers  to  be  now  only  the  work  and  the  care  of  a 
few  earnest  and  fanatical  men.      Suddenly  it  is  taken  up 
by  a  minister  of  commanding  influence,   and  the  bore  or 
the  crotchet  of  one  Parliament  is  the  great  party  contro- 
versy of  a  second,  and  the  accomplished  triumph  of  a  third. 


284  A  History  of  Our  Oivn  Times.  , 

In  this  instance  it  is  beyond  dispute  that  the  League  seemed 
to  be  somewhat  losing  in  strength  and  influence  just  on  the 
eve  of  its  complete  triumph.  He  must,  indeed,  be  the 
ver}'  optimist  of  Parliamentary  government  who  upholds 
the  manner  of  Free-trade's  final  adoption  as  absolutely 
satisfactory,  and  as  reflecting  nothing  but  credit  upon  the 
counsels  of  our  two  great  political  parties.  Such  a  well- 
contented  personage  might  be  fairly  asked  to  explain  why 
a  system  of  protective  taxation,  beginning  to  be  regarded 
by  all  thoughtful  statesmen  as  bad  in  itself,  should  never 
be  examined  with  a  view  to  its  repeal  until  the  force  of  a 
great  emergency  and  the  rival  biddings  of  party  leaders 
came  to  render  its  repeal  inevitable.  The  Corn-laws,  as 
all  the  world  now  admits,  were  a  cruel  burden  to  the  poor 
and  the  working-class  of  England.  They  were  justly  de- 
scribed by  Lord  John  Russell  as  "  the  blight  of  commerce, 
the  bane  of  agriculture,  the  source  of  bitter  division  among 
classes;  the  cause  of  penury,  fever,  mortality,  and  crime 
among  the  people."  All  this  was  independent  of  the  sud- 
den and  ephemeral  calamity  of  the  potato  rot,  which  at 
the  time  when  Lord  John  Russell  wrote  that  letter  did  not 
threaten  to  become  nearly  so  fatal  as  it  afterward  proved 
to  be.  One  cannot  help  asking  how  long  would  the  Corn- 
laws  have  been  suffered  thus  to  blight  commerce  and 
agriculture,  to  cause  division  among  classes,  and  to  pro- 
duce penury,  mortality,  and  crime  among  the  people,  if 
the  potato  rot  in  Ireland  had  not  rendered  it  necessary  to 
do  something  without  delay? 

The  potato  rot,  however,  inspired  the  writing  of  Lord 
John  Russell's  letter,  and  Lord  John  Russell's  letter  in- 
spired vSir  Robert  Peel  with  the  conviction  that  something 
must  be  done.  Most  of  his  colleagues  were  inclined  to  go 
with  him  this  time.  A  cabinet  council  was  held  on  No- 
vember 25th,  almost  immediately  after  the  publication  of 
Lord  John  Russell's  letter.  At  that  council  Sir  Robert  Peel 
recommended  the  summoning  of  Parliament  with  a  view 
to  instant  measures  to  combat  the  famine  in  Ireland,  but 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand.  285 

with  a  view  also  to  some  announcement  of  legislation  in- 
tended to  pave  the  way  for  the  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws. 
Lord  Stanley  still  hesitated,  and  asked  time  to  consider 
his  decision.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  was  unchanged  in 
his  private  opinion  that  the  Corn-laws  ought  to  be  main- 
tained; but  he  declared  with  a  blunt  simplicity  that  his 
only  object  in  public  life  was  "to  support  Sir  Robert  Peel's 
administration  of  the  Government  for  the  Queen."  "A 
good  government  for  the  country,"  said  the  sturdy  and 
simple  old  hero,  "  is  more  important  than  Corn-laws  or 
any  other  consideration."  One  may  smile  at  this  notion 
of  a  good  government  without  reference  to  the  quality  of  the 
legislation  it  introduces;  it  reminds  one  a  little  of  the 
celebrated  study  of  history  without  reference  to  time  or 
place.  But  the  Duke  acted  strictly  up  to  his  principles  of 
duty,  and  he  declared  that  if  Sir  Robert  Peel  considered 
the  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws  to  be  not  right  or  necessary  for 
the  welfare  of  England,  but  requisite  for  the  maintenance 
of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  position  "  in  Parliament  and  in  the 
public  view,"  he  should  thoroughly  support  the  proposal. 
Lord  Stanley,  however,  was  not  to  be  changed  in  the  end. 
He  took  time  to  consider,  and  seems  really  to  have  tried 
his  best  to  persuade  himself  that  he  could  fall  in  with  the 
new  position  which  the  Premier  had  assumed.  Meanwhile 
the  most  excited  condition  of  public  feeling  prevailed 
throughout  London  and  the  country  generally.  The 
7'ii/ies  newspaper  came  out  on  December  4th  with  the  an- 
nouncement that  the  ministry  had  made  up  its  mind,  and 
that  the  Royal  speech  at  the  commencement  of  the  session 
would  recommend  an  immediate  consideration  of  the  Corn- 
laws  preparatory  to  their  total  repeal.  It  would  be  hardly 
possible  to  exaggerate  the  excitement  caused  by  this  star- 
tling piece  of  news.  It  was  indignantly  and  in  unqualified 
terms  declared  a  falsehood  by  the  ministerial  prints.  Long 
arguments  were  gone  into  to  prove  that  even  if  the  fact 
announced  were  true  it  could  not  possibly  have  been  known 
to  the  Times.     In  Disraeli's  "  Coningsby"  Mr.  Rigby  gives 


286  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  clearest  and  most  convincing  reasons  to  prove,  first, 
that  Lord  Spencer  could  not  be  dead,  as  report  said  he 
was ;  and  next,  that  even  if  he  were  dead,  the  fact  could 
not  possibly  be  known  to  those  who  took  on  themselves  to 
announce  it.  He  is  hardly  silenced  even  by  the  assurance 
of  a  great  duke  that  he  is  one  of  Lord  Spencer's  executors, 
and  that  Lord  Spencer  is  certainly  dead.  So  the  announce- 
ment in  the  Times  was  fiercely  and  pedantically  argued 
against.  "  It  can't  be  true;"  "the  Times  could  not  get  to 
know  of  it;"  "  it  must  be  a  cabinet  secret  if  it  were  true;" 
"  nobody  outside  the  cabinet  could  possibly  know  of  it ;" 
"  if  any  one  outside  the  cabinet  could  get  to  know  of  it,  it 
would  not  be  the  Times;"  it  would  be  this,  that  or  the 
other  person  or  journal ;  and  so  forth.  Long  after  it  had 
been  made  certain,  beyond  even  Mr.  Rigby's  power  of  dis- 
putation, that  the  announcement  was  true  so  far  as  the  re- 
solve of  the  Prime-minister  was  concerned,  people  con- 
tinued to  argue  and  controvert  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  Times  became  possessed  of  the  secret.  The  general 
conclusion  come  to  among  the  knowing  was  that  the  blan- 
dishments of  a  gifted  and  beautiful  lady  with  a  dash  of 
political  intrigue  in  her  had  somehow  extorted  the  secret 
from  a  young  and  handsome  member  of  the  cabinet,  and 
that  she  had  communicated  it  to  the  Times.  It  is  not  im- 
possible that  this  may  have  been  the  true  explanation. 
It  was  believed  in  by  a  great  many  persons  who  might 
have  been  in  a  position  to  judge  of  the  probabilities.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  were  surely  signs  and  tokens  enough 
by  which  a  shrewd  politician  might  have  guessed  what 
was  to  come  without  any  intervention  of  petticoat  diplo- 
macy. It  seems  odd  now  that  people  should  then  have 
distressed  themselves  so  much  by  conjectures  as  to  the 
source  of  the  information  when  once  it  was  made  certain 
that  the  information  itself  was  substantially  true.  This  it 
undoubtedly  was,  although  it  did  not  tell  all  the  truth,  and 
could  not  foretell.  For  there  was  an  ordeal  yet  to  be  gone 
through  before   the  Prime-minister  could  put   his   plans 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand.  287 

into  operation.  On  December  4th  the  Times  made  the  an- 
nouncement. On  the  6th,  having  been  passionately  con- 
tradicted, it  repeated  the  assertion.  "  We  adhere  to  our 
original  announcement  that  Parliament  will  meet  early  in 
January,  and  that  a  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws  will  be  pro- 
posed in  one  house  by  Sir  R.  Peel,  and  in  the  other  by  the 
Duke  of  Wellington."  But,  in  the  mean  time,  the  opposi- 
tion in  the  cabinet  had  proved  itself  unmanageable.  Lord 
Stanley  and  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  intimated  to  the  Prime- 
minister  that  they  could  not  be  parties  to  any  measure  in- 
volving the  ultimate  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws.  Sir  Robert 
Peel  did  not  believe  that  he  could  carry  out  his  project 
satisfactorily  under  such  circumstances,  and  he  therefore 
hastened  to  tender  his  resignation  to  the  Queen.  "  The 
other  members  of  the  cabinet,  without  exception,  I  be- 
lieve"— these  are  Sir  Robert  Peel's  own  words — "con- 
curred in  this  opinion ;  and  under  these  circumstances  I 
considered  it  to  be  my  duty  to  tender  my  resignation  to  her 
Majesty.  On  the  5th  of  December  I  repaired  to  Osborne, 
Isle  of  Wight,  and  humbly  solicited  her  Majesty  to  relieve 
me  from  duties  which  I  felt  I  could  no  longer  discharge 
with  advantage  to  her  Majesty's  service."  The  very  day 
after  the  Times  made  its  famous  announcement,  the  very 
day  before  the  Times  repeated  it,  the  Prime-minister  who 
was  to  propose  the  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws  went  out  of 
office. 

Quern  dixere  chaos !  Apparently  chaos  had  come  again. 
Lord  John  Russell  was  sent  for  from  Edinburgh.  His 
letter  had,  without  any  such  purpose  on  his  part,  written 
him  up  as  the  man  to  take  Sir  Robert  Peel's  place.  Lord 
John  Russell  came  to  London,  and  did  his  best  to  cope 
with  the  many  difficulties  of  the  situation.  His  party 
were  not  very  strong  in  the  country,  and  they  had  not  a 
majority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  very  naturally 
endeavored  to  obtain  from  Peel  a  pledge  that  he  would 
support  the  immediate  and  complete  repeal  of  the  Corn- 
laws.     Peel,  writing  to  the  Queen,  "  humbly  expresses  his 


288  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

regret  that  he  does  not  feel  it  to  be  consistent  with  his 
duty  to  enter  upon  the  consideration  of  this  important 
question  in  Parliament  fettered  by  a  previous  engagement 
of  the  nature  of  that  required  of  him."  The  position  of 
Lord  John  Russell  was  awkward.  He  had  been  forced 
into  it  because  one  or  two  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  colleagues 
would  not  consent  to  adopt  the  policy  of  their  chief.  But 
the  very  fact  of  so  stubborn  an  opposition  from  a  man  of 
Lord  Stanley's  influence  showed  clearly  enough  that  the 
passing  of  Free-trade  measures  was  not  to  be  efEected  with- 
out stern  resistance  from  the  country  party.  The  whole 
risk  and  burden  had  seemingly  been  thrown  on  Lord  John 
Russell ;  and  now  Sir  Robert  Peel  would  not  even  pledge 
himself  to  unconditional  support  of  the  very  policy  which 
was  understood  to  be  his  own.  Lord  j  ohn  Russell  showed, 
even  then,  his  characteristic  courage.  He  resolved  to  form 
a  ministry  without  a  Parliamentary  majority.  He  was 
not,  however,  fated  to  try  the  ordeal.  Lord  Grey,  who 
was  a  few  months  before  Lord  Howick,  and  who  had  just 
succeeded  to  the  title  of  his  father  (the  stately  Charles 
Earl  Grey,  the  pupil  of  Fox,  and  chief  of  the  cabinet  which 
passed  the  Reform  Bill  and  abolished  slavery) — Lord  Grey 
felt  a  strong  objection  to  the  foreign  policy  of  Lord  Palm- 
erston,  and  these  two  could  not  get  on  in  one  ministry, 
as  it  was  part  of  Lord  John  Russell's  plan  that  they  should 
do.  Lord  Grey  also  was  strongly  of  opinion  that  a  seat  in 
the  cabinet  ought  to  be  offered  to  Mr.  Cobden ;  but  other 
great  Whigs  could  not  bring  themselves  to  any  larger  sac- 
rifice to  justice  and  common  sense  than  a  suggestion  that 
the  office  of  Vice-president  of  the  Board  of  Trade  should 
be  tendered  to  the  leader  of  the  Free-trade  movement, 
Mr.  Macaulay  describes  the  events  in  a  letter  to  the  Edin- 
burgh Chamber  of  Commerce.  "All  our  plans  were  frus- 
trated by  Lord  Grey,  who  objected  to  Lord  Palmerston 
being  Foreign  Secretary.  I  hope  that  the  public  interests 
will  not  suffer.  Sir  Robert  Peel  must  now  undertake  the 
settlement  of  the  question.     It  is  certain  that  he  can  settle 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand.  289 

it.  It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  we  could  have  done  so. 
For  we  shall  to  a  man  support  him ;  and  a  large  proportion 
of  those  who  are  now  in  office  would  have  refused  to  sup- 
port us. "  One  passage  in  Macaulay's  letter  will  be  read 
with  peculiar  interest.  "From  the  first,"  he  says,  "I  told 
Lord  John  Russell  that  I  stipulated  for  one  thing  only^ — 
total  and  immediate  repeal  of  the  Corn-laws;  that  my  ob- 
jections to  gradual  abolition  were  insurmountable;  but 
that  if  he  declared  for  total  and  immediate  repeal  I  would 
be  as  to  all  other  matters  absolutely  in  his  hands ;  that  I 
would  take  any  office,  or  no  office,  just  as  suited  him  best ; 
and  that  he  should  never  be  disturbed  by  any  personal 
pretensions  or  jealousies  on  my  part."  No  one  can  doubt 
Macaulay's  sincerity  and  singleness  of  purpose.  But  it  is 
surprising  to  note  the  change  that  the  agitation  of  little 
more  than  two  years  has  made  in  his  opinions  on  the  sub- 
ject of  a  policy  of  immediate  and  unconditional  abolition. 
In  February,  1843,  he  was  pointing  out  to  the  electors  of 
Edinburgh  the  unwisdom  of  refusing  a  compromise,  and 
in  December,  1845,  he  is  writing  to  Edinburgh  to  say  that 
the  one  only  thing  for  which  he  must  stipulate  was  total 
and  immediate  repeal.  The  Anti-Corn-Law  League  might 
well  be  satisfied  with  the  propagandist  work  they  had  done. 
The  League  itself  looked  on  very  composedly  during  these 
little  altercations  and  embarrassments  of  parties.  They 
knew  well  enough  now  that  let  who  would  take  power,  he 
must  carry  out  their  policy.  At  a  meeting  of  the  League, 
which  was  held  in  Covent  Garden  Theatre  on  the  17th  of 
this  memorable  month,  and  while  the  negotations  were 
still  going  on,  Mr.  Cobden  declared  that  he  and  his  friends 
had  not  striven  to  keep  one  party  in  or  another  out  of 
office.  "  We  have  worked  with  but  one  principle  and  one 
object  in  view ;  and  if  we  maintain  that  principle  for  but 
six  months  more,  we  shall  attain  to  that  state  which  I  have 
so  long  and  so  anxiously  desired,  when  the  League  shall 
be  dissolved  into  its  primitive  elements  by  the  triumph  of 
its  principles. " 

Vol.  I. — 19  _ 


290  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Lord  John  Russell  found  it  impossible  to  form  a  minis- 
try. He  signified  his  failure  to  the  Queen.  Probably, 
having  done  the  best  he  could,  he  was  not  particularly 
distressed  to  find  that  his  efforts  were  ineffectual.  The 
Queen  had  to  send  for  Sir  Robert  Peel  to  Windsor,  and 
tell  him  that  she  must  require  him  to  withdraw  his  resig- 
nation and  to  remain  in  her  service.  Sir  Robert  of  course 
could  only  comply.  The  Queen  offered  to  give  him  some 
time  to  enter  into  communication  with  his  colleagues,  but 
Sir  Robert  very  wisely  thought  that  he  could  speak  with 
much  greater  authority  if  he  were  to  invite  them  to  sup- 
port him  in  an  effort  on  which  he  was  determined,  and 
which  he  had  positively  undertaken  to  make.  He,  there- 
fore, returned  from  Windsor  on  the  evening  of  December 
20th,  "having  resumed  all  the  functions  of  First  Minister 
of  the  Crown."  The  Duke  of  Buccleuch  withdrew  his 
opposition  to  the  policy  which  Peel  was  now  to  carry  out; 
but  Lord  Stanley  remained  firm.  The  place  of  the  latter 
was  taken  as  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies  by  Mr. 
Gladstone,  who,  however,  curiously  enough  remained 
without  a  seat  in  Parliament  during  the  eventful  session 
that  was  now  to  come.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  sat  for  the 
borough  of  Newark,  but  that  borough  being  under  the 
influence  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  had  withdrawn 
his  support  from  the  ministry,  he  did  not  invite  re-election, 
but  remained  without  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  for 
some  months.  Sir  Robert  Peel  then,  to  use  his  own  words 
in  a  letter  to  the  Princess  de  Lieven,  resumed  power 
with  greater  means  of  rendering  public  service  than  I 
should  have  had  if  I  had  not  relinquished  it. "  He  felt, 
he  said,  "like  a  man  restored  to  life  after  his  funeral 
service  had  been  preached." 

Parliament  was  summoned  to  meet  in  January.  In  the 
mean  time  it  was  easily  seen  how  the  Protectionists  and 
the  Tories  of  the  extreme  order  generally  would  regard 
the  proposals  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Protectionist  meetings 
were  held  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  and  they  were 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand.  291 

all  but  unanimous  in  condemning  by  anticipation  the  policy 
of  the  restored  Premier.  Resolutions  were  passed  at  many 
of  these  meetings  expressing  an  equal  disbelief  in  the 
Prime-minister  and  in  the  famine.  The  utmost  indigna- 
tion was  expressed  at  the  idea  of  there  being  any  famine 
in  prospect  which  could  cause  any  departure  from  the 
principles  which  secured  to  the  farmers  a  certain  fixed 
price  for  their  grain,  or  at  least  prevented  the  price  from 
falling  below  what  they  considered  a  paying  amount.  Not 
less  absurd  than  the  protestations  that  there  would  be  no 
famine  were  some  of  the  remedies  which  were  suggested 
for  it  if  it  should  insist  on  coming  in.  The  Duke  of  Nor- 
folk of  that  time  made  himself  particularly  conspicuous 
by  a  beneficent  suggestion  which  he  offered  to  a  distressed 
population.  He  went  about  recommending  a  curry  powder 
of  his  own  device  as  a  charm  against  hunger. 

Parliament  met.  The  opening  day  was  January  2 2d, 
1846.  The  Queen  in  person  opened  the  session,  and  the 
speech  from  the  throne  said  a  good  deal  about  the  condi- 
tion of  Ireland  and  the  failure  of  the  potato  crop.  The 
speech  contained  one  significant  sentence.  "  I  have  had," 
her  Majesty  was  made  to  say,  "great  satisfaction  in  giving 
my  assent  to  the  measures  which  you  have  presented  to 
me  from  time  to  time,  calculated  to  extend  commerce  and 
to  stimulate  domestic  skill  and  industry,  by  the  repeal  of 
prohibitive  and  the  relaxation  of  protective  duties.  I 
recommend  you  to  take  into  your  early  consideration 
whether  the  principle  on  which  you  have  acted  may  not 
with  advantage  be  yet  more  extensively  applied. "  Before 
the  address  in  reply  to  the  speech  from  the  throne  was 
moved,  Sir  Robert  Peel  gave  notice  of  the  intention  of  the 
Government  on  the  earliest  possible  day  to  submit  to  the 
consideration  of  the  House  measures  connected  with  the 
commercial  and  financial  affairs  of  the  country. 

There  are  few  scenes  more  animated  and  exciting  than 
that  presented  by  the  House  of  Commons  on  some  night 
when  a  great  debate  is  expected,  or  when  some  momentous 


292  A  History  of  Our  Ovon  Times. 

announcement  is  to  be  made.  A  common  thrill  seems 
to  tremble  all  through  the  assembly,  as  a  breath  of  wind 
runs  across  the  sea.  The  House  appears  for  the  moment 
to  be  one  body,  pervaded  by  one  expectation.  The  minis- 
terial benches,  the  front  benches  of  opposition,  are  occupied 
by  the  men  of  political  renown  and  of  historic  name.  The 
benches  everywhere  else  are  crowded  to  their  utmost 
capacity.  Members  who  cannot  get  seats — on  such  an 
occasion  a  goodly  number — stand  below  the  bar  or  have  to 
dispose  themselves  along  the  side  galleries.  The  celebri- 
ties are  not  confined  to  the  Treasury  benches  or  those  of 
the  leaders  of  opposition.  Here  and  there,  among  the 
independent  members  and  below  the  gangway  on  both 
sides,  are  seen  men  of  influence  and  renown.  At  the 
opening  of  Parliament  in  1846  this  was  especially  to  be 
observed.  The  rising  fame  of  the  Free-trade  leaders 
made  them  almost  like  a  third  great  party  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  strangers'  gallery,  the  Speaker's  gal- 
lery, on  such  a  night  are  crowded  to  excess.  The  eye 
surveys  the  whole  House  and  sees  no  vacant  place.  In 
the  very  hum  of  conversation  that  runs  along  the  benches 
there  is  a  tone  of  profound  anxiety.  The  minister  who 
has  to  face  that  House  and  make  the  announcement  for 
which  all  are  waiting  in  a  most  feverish  anxiety  is  a  man 
to  be  envied  by  the  ambitious.  This  time  there  was  a 
curiosity  about  everything.  What  was  the  minister  about 
to  announce?  When  and  in  what  fashion  would  he  an- 
nounce it?  Would  the  Whig  leaders  speak  before  the 
ministerial  announcement?  Would  the  Free-traders?  What 
voice  would  first  hint  to  the  expectant  Commons  the 
course  which  political  events  were  destined  to  take?  The 
moving  of  an  address  to  the  throne  is  always  a  formal 
piece  of  business.  It  would  be  hardly  possible  for  Cicero 
or  Burke  to  be  very  interesting  when  performing  such  a 
task.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  an  excellent  chance  for  a 
young  beginner.  He  finds  the  House  in  a  sort  of  con- 
temptuously indulgent  mood,  prepared  to  welcome  the 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand,  29^ 

slightest  evidence  of  any  capacity  of  speech  above  the  dull- 
est mediocrity.  He  can  hardly  say  anything  absurd  or 
offensive  unless  he  goes  absolutely  out  of  his  way  to  make 
a  fool  of  himself;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  can  easily 
say  his  little  nothings  in  a  graceful  way,  and  receive 
grateful  applause,  accordingly,  from  an  assembly  which 
counts  on  being  bored,  and  feels  doubly  indebted  to  the 
speaker  who  is  even  in  the  slightest  degree  an  agreeable 
disappointment.  On  this  particular  occasion,  however, 
the  duty  of  the  proposer  and  seconder  of  the  address  was 
made  specially  trying  by  the  fact  that  they  had  to  interfere 
with  merely  formal  utterances  between  an  eager  House 
and  an  exciting  announcement.  A  certain  piquancy  was 
lent,  however,  to  the  performance  of  the  duty  by  the  fact, 
which  the  speeches  made  evident  beyond  the  possibility 
of  mistake,  that  the  proposer  of  the  address  knew  quite 
well  what  the  Government  were  about  to  do,  and  that  the 
seconder  knew  nothing  whatever. 

Now  the  formal  task  is  done.  The  address  has  been 
moved  and  seconded.  The  Speaker  puts  the  question  that 
the  address  be  adopted.  Now  is  the  time  for  debate,  if 
debate  there  is  to  be.  On  such  occasions  there  is  always 
some  discussion,  but  it  is  commonly  as  mere  a  piece  of 
formality  as  the  address  itself.  It  is  understood  that  the 
leader  of  opposition  will  say  something  meaning  next  to 
nothing;  that  two  or  three  men  will  grumble  vaguely  at 
the  ministry;  that  the  leader  of  the  House  will  reply ;  and 
then  the  affair  is  all  over.  But  on  this  occasion  it  was 
certain  that  some  momentous  announcement  would  have 
to  be  made;  and  the  question  was  when  it  would  come. 
Perhaps  no  one  expected  exactly  what  did  happen. 
Nothing  can  be  more  tmusual  than  for  the  leader  of  the 
House  to  open  the  debate  on  such  an  occasion;  and  Sir 
Robert  Peel  was  usually  somewhat  of  a  formalist,  who 
kept  to  the  regular  ways  in  all  that  pertained  to  the  busi- 
ness of  the  House.  No  eyes  of  expectation  were  turned, 
therefore,  to  the  ministerial  bench  at  the  moment  after 


294  -^  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

the  formal  putting  of  the  question  by  the  Speaker.  It  was 
rather  expected  that  Lord  John  Russell,  or  perhaps  Mr. 
Cobden,  would  rise.  But  a  surprised  murmur  running 
through  all  parts  of  the  House  soon  told  those  who  could 
not  see  the  Treasury  bench  that  something  unusual  had 
happened;  and  in  a  moment  the  voice  of  the  Prime-min- 
ister was  heard — that  marvellous  voice  of  which  Lord 
Beaconsfield  says  that  it  had  not  in  his  time  any  equal 
in  the  House,  "unless  we  except  the  thrilling  tones  of 
O'Connell" — and  it  was  known  that  the  great  explanation 
was  coming  at  once. 

The  explanation  everi  now,  however,  was  somewhat 
deferred.  The  Prime-minister  showed  a  deliberate  in- 
tention, it  might  have  been  thought,  not  to  come  to  the 
point  at  once.  He  went  into  long  and  labored  explana- 
tions of  the  manner  in  which  his  mind  had  been  brought 
into  a  change  on  the  subject  of  Free-trade  and  Protection; 
and  he  gave  exhaustive  calculations  to  show  that  the  re- 
duction of  duty  was  constantly  followed  by  expansion  of 
the  revenue,  and  even  a  maintenance  of  high  prices.  The 
duties  on  glass,  the  duties  on  flax,  the  prices  of  salt  pork 
and  domestic  lard,  the  contract  price  of  salt  beef  for  the 
navy — these  and  many  other  such  topics  were  discussed  at 
great  length  and  with  elaborate  fulness  of  detail  in  the 
hearing  of  an  eager  House,  anxious  only,  for  that  night,  to 
know  whether  or  not  the  minister  meant  to  introduce  the 
principle  of  Free-trade.  Peel,  however,  made  it  clear 
enough  that  he  had  become  a  complete  convert  to  the 
doctrines  of  the  Manchester  school,  and  that,  in  his  opin- 
ion, the  time  had  come  when  that  protection  which  he  had 
taken  office  to  maintain  must  forever  be  abandoned.  One 
sentence  at  the  close  of  his  speech  was  made  the  occasion 
of  much  labored  criticism  and  some  severe  accusation. 
It  was  that  in  which  Peel  declared  that  he  found  it  "no 
easy  task  to  insure  the  harmonious  and  united  action  of 
an  ancient  monarchy,  a  proud  aristocracy,  and  a  reformed 
House  of  Commons." 


Famine  Forces  Peel's  Hand.  295 

The  explanation  was  over.  The  House  of  Commons 
were  left  rather  to  infer  than  to  understand  what  the  Gov- 
ernment proposed  to  do.  Lord  John  Russell  entered  into 
some  personal  explanations  relating  to  his  endeavor  to 
form  a  ministry,  and  the  causes  of  its  failure.  These  have 
not  much  interest  for  a  later  tiine.  It  might  have  seemed 
that  the  work  of  the  night  was  done.  It  was  evident  that 
the  ministerial  policy  could  not  be  discussed  then;  for,  in 
fact,  it  had  not  been  announced.  The  House  knew  that  the 
Prime-minister  was  a  convert  to  the  principles  of  Free- 
trade  ;  but  that  was  all  that  any  one  could  be  said  to  know 
except  those  who  were  in  the  secrets  of  the  cabinet.  There 
appeared,  therefore,  nothing  for  it  but  to  wait  until  the 
time  should  come  for  the  formal  announcement  and  the 
full  discussion  of  the  Government  measures.  Suddenly, 
however,  a  new  and  striking  figure  intervened  in  the 
languishing  debate,  and  filled  the  House  of  Commons  with 
a  fresh  life.  There  is  not  often  to  be  found  in  our  Parlia- 
mentary history  an  example  like  this  of  a  sudden  turn 
given  to  a  whole  career  by  a  timely  speech.  The  member 
who  rose  to  comment  on  the  explanation  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  had  been  for  many  years  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
This  was  his  tenth  session.  He  had  spoken  often  in  each 
session.  He  had  made  many  bold  attempts  to  win  a  name 
in  Parliament,  and  hitherto  his  political  career  had  been 
simply  a  failure.  From  the  hour  when  he  spoke  this 
speech  it  was  one  long,  unbroken,  brilliant  success. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


MR.    DISRAELI. 


The  speaker  who  rose  into  such  sudden  prominence  and 
something  like  the  position  of  a  party  leader  was  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  men  the  politics  of  the  reign  have  pro- 
duced. Perhaps,  if  the  word  remarkable  were  to  be  used 
in  its  most  strict  sense,  and  without  particular  reference 
to  praise,  it  would  be  just  to  describe  him  as  emphatically 
the  most  remarkable  man  that  the  political  controversies 
of  the  present  reign  have  called  into  power.  Mr.  Disraeli 
entered  the  House  of  Commons  as  Conservative  member 
for  Maidstone  in  1837.  He  was  then  about  thirty-two 
years  of  age.  He  had  previously  made  repeated  and  un- 
successful attempts  to  get  a  seat  in  Parliament.  He  began 
his  political  career  as  an  advanced  Liberal,  and  had  come 
out  under  the  auspices  of  Daniel  O'Connell  and  Joseph 
Hume.  He  had  described  himself  as  one  who  desired  to 
fight  the  battle  of  the  people,  and  who  was  supported  by 
neither  of  the  aristocratic  parties.  He  failed  again  and 
again,  and  apparently  he  began  to  think  that  it  would  be 
a  wiser  thing  to  look  for  the  support  of  one  or  other  of  the 
aristocratic  parties.  He  had  before  this  given  indications 
of  remarkable  literary  talent,  if  indeed  it  might  not  be 
called  genius.  His  novel,  "  Vivian  Grey,"  published  when 
he  was  in  his  twenty-third  year,  was  suffused  with  extrav- 
agance, affectation,  and  mere  animal  spirits;  but  it  was 
full  of  the  evidences  of  a  fresh  and  brilliant  ability.  The 
son  of  a  distinguished  literary  man,  Mr.  Disraeli  had 
probably  at  that  time  only  a  young  literary  man's  notions 
of  politics.  It  is  not  necessary  to  charge  him  with  delib- 
erate inconsistency  because  from  having  been  a  Radical 


Mr.  Disraeli.  2<)1 

of  the  most  advanced  views  he  became  by  an  easy  leap  a 
romantic  Tory.  It  is  not  likely  that  at  the  beginning  of 
his  career  he  had  any  very  clear  ideas  in  connection  with 
the  words  Tory  or  Radical.  He  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  W.  J. 
Fox,  already  described  as  an  eminent  Unitarian  minister 
and  rising  politician,  in  which  he  declared  that  h\s  forte 
was  sedition.  Most  clever  young  men  who  are  not  born 
to  fortune,  and  who  feel  drawn  into  political  life,  fancy 
too  that  their  forte  is  sedition.  When  young  Disraeli 
found  that  sedition  and  even  advanced  Radicalism  did  not 
do  much  to  get  him  into  Parliament  he  probably  began  to 
ask  himself  whether  his  Liberal  convictions  were  so  deeply 
rooted  as  to  call  for  the  sacrifice  of  a  career.  He  thought 
the  question  over,  and  doubtless  found  himself  crystalliz- 
ing fast  into  an  advocate  of  the  established  order  of  thines. 
In  a  purely  personal  light  this  was  a  fortunate  conclusion 
for  the  am-bitious  young  politician.  He  could  not  then 
have  anticipated  the  extraordinar)-  change  which  was  to 
be  wrought  in  the  destiny  and  the  composition  of  the  Tory 
party  by  the  eloquence,  the  arguments,  and  the  influence 
of  two  men  who  at  that  time  were  almost  absolutely  un- 
known. Mr.  Cobden  stood  for  the  first  time  as  a  candidate 
for  a  seat  in  Parliament  in  the  year  that  saw  Mr.  Disraeli 
elected  for  the  first  time,  and  Mr.  Cobden  was  unsuccess- 
ful. Cobden  had  to  wait  four  years  before  he  found  his 
way  into  the  House  of  Commons;  Bright  did  not  become 
a  member  of  Parliament  until  some  two  years  later  still. 
It  was,  however,  the  Anti-Corn-law  agitation  which,  by 
conquering  Peel  and  making  him  its  advocate,  brought 
about  the  memorable  split  in  the  Conservative  party,  and 
carried  away  from  the  cause  of  the  country  squires  nearly 
all  the  men  of  talent  who  had  hitherto  been  with  them. 
A  new  or  middle  party  of  so-called  Peelites  was  formed. 
Graham,  Gladstone,  Sidney  Herbert,  Cardwell,  and  other 
men  of  equal  mark  or  promise,  joined  it,  and  the  country 
party  was  left  to  seek  for  leadership  in  the  earnest  spirit 
and  very  moderate  talents  of  Lord  George  Bentinck.     Mr. 


29S  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Disraeli  then  found  his  chance.  His  genius  was  such  that 
it  must  have  made  a  way  for  him  anywhere  and  in  spite 
of  any  competition ;  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  his 
career  of  political  advancement  might  have  been  very 
different  if,  in  place  of  finding  himself  the  only  man  of 
first-class  ability  in  the  party  to  which  he  had  attached 
himself,  he  had  been  a  member  of  a  party  which  had 
Palmerston  and  Russell  and  Gladstone  and  Graham  for 
its  captains,  and  Cobden  and  Bright  for  its  habitual  sup- 
porters. 

This,  however,  could  not  have  been  in  Mr.  Disraeli's 
thoughts  when  he  changed  from  Radicalism  to  Conserva- 
tism. No  trace  of  the  progress  of  conversion  can  be  found 
in  his  speeches  or  his  writings.  It  is  not  unreasonable 
to  infer  that  he  took  up  Radicalism  at  the  beginning  be- 
cause it  looked  the  most  picturesque  and  romantic  thing 
to  do,  and  that  only  as  he  found  it  fail  to  answer  his  per- 
sonal object  did  it  occur  to  him  that  he  had,  after  all,  more 
affinity  with  the  cause  of  the  country  gentlemen.  The 
reputation  he  had  made  for  himself  before  his  going  into 
Parliament  was  of  a  nature  rather  calculated  to  retard 
than  to  advance  a  political  career.  He  was  looked  upon 
almost  universally  as  an  eccentric  and  audacious  adven- 
turer, who  was  kept  from  being  dangerous  by  the  affecta- 
tions and  absurdities  of  his  conduct.  He  dressed  in  the 
extremest  style  of  preposterous  foppery;  he  talked  a 
blending  of  cynicism  and  sentiment;  he  had  made  the 
most  reckless  statements;  his  boasting  was  almost  out- 
rageous; his  rhetoric  of  abuse  was,  even  in  that  free-spoken 
time,  astonishingly  vigorous  and  unrestrained.  Even  his 
literary  efforts  did  not  then  receive  anything  like  the 
appreciation  they  have  obtained  since.  At  that  time  they 
were  regarded  rather  as  audacious  whimsicalities,  the 
fantastic  freaks  of  a  clever  youth,  than  as  genuine  works 
of  a  certain  kind  of  art.  Even  when  he  did  get  into  the 
House  of  Commons,  his  first  experience  there  was  little 
calculated  to  give  him  much  hope  of  success.     Reading 


Mr.  Disraeli.  299 

over  his  first  speech  now,  it  seems  hard  to  understand  why 
it  should  have  excited  so  much  laughter  and  derision; 
why  it  should  have  called  forth  nothing  but  laughter  and 
derision.  It  is  a  clever  speech,  full  of  point  and  odd  con- 
ceits ;  very  like  in  style  and  structure  many  of  the  speeches 
which  in  later  years  won  for  the  same  orator  the  applause 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  But  Mr.  Disraeli's  reputation 
had  preceded  him  into  the  House.  Up  to  this  time  his 
life  had  been,  says  an  unfriendly  but  not  an  unjust  critic, 
"  an  almost  uninterrupted  career  of  follies  and  defeats. " 
The  House  was  probably  in  a  humor  to  find  the  speech 
ridiculous  because  the  general  impression  was  that  the 
man  himself  was  ridiculous.  Mr.  Disraeli's  appearance, 
too,  no  doubt,  contributed  something  to  the  contemptuous 
opinion  which  was  formed  of  him  on  his  first  attempt  to 
address  the  assembly  which  he  afterward  came  to  rule. 
He  is  described  by  an  observer  as  having  been  attired  "  in 
a  bottle-green  frock-coat  and  a  waistcoat  of  white,  of  the 
Dick  Swiveller  pattern,  the  front  of  which  exhibited  a  net- 
work of  glittering  chains ;  large  fancy-pattern  pantaloons, 
and  a  black  tie,  above  which  no  shirt-collar  was  visible, 
completed  the  outward  man.  A  countenance  lividly  pale, 
set  out  by  a  pair  of  intensely  black  eyes,  and  a  broad  but 
not  very  high  forehead,  overhung  by  clustering  ringlets 
of  coal-black  hair,  which,  combed  away  from  the  right 
temple,  fell  in  bunches  of  well-oiled  small  ringlets  over 
his  left  cheek."  His  manner  was  intensely  theatric ;  his 
gestures  were  wild  and  extravagant.  In  all  this  there  is 
not  much,  however,  to  surprise  those  who  knew  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli in  his  greater  days.  His  style  was  always  extrava- 
gant; his  rhetoric  constantly  degenerated  into  vulgarity; 
his  whole  manner  was  that  of  the  typical  foreigner  whom 
English  people  regard  as  the  illustration  of  all  that  is 
vehement  and  unquiet.  But  whatever  the  cause,  it  is 
certain  that  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  attempt  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli made  not  merely  a  failure,  but  even  a  ludicrous 
failure.     One  who  heard  the  debate  thus  describes  the 


300  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

manner  in  which,  baffled  by  the  persistent  laughter  and 
other  interruptions  of  the  noisy  House,  the  orator  with- 
drew from  the  discussion,  defeated  but  not  discouraged. 
"  At  last,  losing  his  temper,  which  until  now  he  had  pre- 
served in  a  wonderful  manner,  he  paused  in  the  midst  of 
a  sentence,  and  looking  the  Liberals  indignantly  in  the 
face,  raised  his  hands,  and,  opening  his  mouth  as  widely 
as  its  dimensions  would  admit,  said,  in  a  remarkably  loud 
and  almost  terrific  tone,  'I  have  begun,  several  times, 
many  things,  and  I  have  often  succeeded  at  last ;  ay,  sir, 
and  though  I  sit  down  now,  the  time  will  come  when  you 
will  hear  me. '"  This  final  prediction  is  so  like  what  a 
manufacturer  of  biography  would  make  up  for  a  hero,  and 
is  so  like  what  was  actually  said  in  one  or  two  other  re- 
markable instances,  that  a  reader  might  be  excused  for 
doubting  its  authenticity  in  this  case.  But  nothing  can 
be  more  certain  than  the  fact  that  Mr.  Disraeli  did  bring 
to  a  close  his  maiden  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons 
with  this  bold  prediction.  The  words  are  to  be  found  in 
the  reports  published  next  morning  in  all  the  daily  papers 
of  the  metropolis. 

It  was  thus  that  Mr.  Disraeli  began  his  career  as  a 
Parliamentary  orator.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  on  that 
occasion  almost  the  only  one  of  his  hearers  who  seems  to 
have  admired  the  speech  was  Sir  Robert  Peel.  It  is  by 
his  philippic  against  Peel  that  Disraeli  is  now  about  to 
convince  the  House  of  Commons  that  the  man  they  laughed 
at  before  is  a  great  Parliamentary  orator. 

Disraeli  was  not  in  the  least  discouraged  by  his  first  fail- 
ure. A  few  days  after  it  he  spoke  again,  and  he  spoke 
three  or  four  times  more  during  his  first  session.  But 
he  had  learned  some  wisdom  by  rough  experience,  and 
he  did  not  make  his  oratorical  flights  so  long  or  so  ambi- 
tious as  that  first  attempt.  Then  he  seemed  after  a  while, 
as  he  grew  more  familiar  with  the  House,  to  go  in  for 
being  paradoxical ;  for  making  himself  always  conspicu- 
ous;   for  taking   up   positions   and  expounding  political 


Mr.  Disraeli.  301 

creeds  which  other  men  would  have  avoided.  It  is  very 
difficult  to  get  any  clear  idea  of  what  his  opinions  were 
about  this  period  of  his  career,  if  he  had  any  political 
opinions  at  all.  Our  impression  is  that  he  really  had  no 
opinions  at  that  time;  that  he  was  only  in  quest  of  opin- 
ions. He  spoke  on  subjects  of  which  it  was  evident  that 
he  knew  nothing,  and  sometimes  he  managed,  by  the 
sheer  force  of  a  strong  intelligence,  to  discern  the  absurdity 
of  economic  sophistries  which  had  baffled  men  of  far 
greater  experience,  and  which,  indeed,  to  judge  from  his 
personal  declarations  and  political  conduct  afterward,  he 
allowed  before  long  to  baffle  and  bewilder  himself.  More 
often,  however,  he  talked  with  a  grandiose  and  oracular 
vagueness  which  seemed  to  imply  that  he  alone  of  all  men 
saw  into  the  very  heart  of  the  question,  but  that  he  of  all 
men  must  not  yet  reveal  what  he  saw.  At  his  best  of 
times  Mr.  Disraeli  was  an  example  of  that  class  of  being 
whom  Macaulay  declares  to  be  so  rare  that  Lord  Chatham 
appears  to  him  almost  a  solitary  illustration  of  it — "  a  great 
man  of  real  genius,  and  of  a  brave,  lofty,  and  commanding 
spirit,  without  simplicity  of  character."  What  Macaulay 
goes  on  to  say  of  Chatham  will  bear  quotation  too.  "  He 
was  an  actor  in  the  closet,  an  actor  at  council,  an  actor  in 
Parliament-  and  even  in  private  society  he  could  not  lay 
aside  his  theatrical  tones  and  attitudes."  Mr.  Disraeli 
was  at  one  period  of  his  career  so  affected  that  he  positively 
affected  affectation.  Yet  he  was  a  man  of  undoubted 
genius;  he  had  a  spirit  that  never  quailed  under  stress  of 
any  circumstances,  however  disheartening;  he  commanded 
as  scarcely  any  statesman  since  Chatham  himself  has  been 
able  to  do;  and  it  would  be  unjust  and  absurd  to  deny 
to  a  man  gifted  with  qualities  like  these  the  possession  of 
a  lofty  nature. 

For  some  time  Mr.  Disraeli  then  seemed  resolved  to 
make  himself  remarkable — to  be  talked  about.  He  suc- 
ceeded admirably.  He  was  talked  about.  All  the  political 
and  satirical  journals  of  the  day  had  a  great  deal  to  say 


502  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

about  him.  He  is  not  spoken  of  in  terms  of  praise  as  a 
rule,  neither  has  he  much  praise  to  shower  about  him. 
Any  one  who  looks  back  to  the  political  controversies  of 
that  time  will  be  astounded  at  the  language  which  Mr. 
Disraeli  addresses  to  his  opponents  of  the  press,  and  which 
his  opponents  address  to  him.  In  some  cases  it  is  no  ex- 
aggeration to  sa)'  that  a  squabble  between  two  Billings- 
gate fish-women  in  our  day  would  have  good  chance  of 
ending  without  the  use  of  words  and  phrases  so  coarse  as 
those  which  then  passed  between  this  brilliant  literary 
man  and  some  of  his  assailants.  We  have  all  read  the 
history  of  the  controversy  between  him  and  O'Connell, 
and  the  savage  ferocity  of  the  language  with  which  O'Con- 
nell denounced  him  as  "a  miscreant,"  as  a  "wretch,"  a 
"liar,"  "whose  life  is  a  living  lie;"  and  finally,  as  "the 
heir-at-law  of  the  blasphemous  thief  who  died  impenitent 
on  the  Cross."  Mr.  Disraeli  begins  his  reply  by  describ- 
ing himself  as  one  of  those  who  "  will  not  be  insulted  even 
by  a  Yahoo  without  chastising  it ;"  and  afterward,  in  a  let- 
ter to  one  of  Mr.  O'Connell's  sons,  declares  his  desire  to 
express  "the  utter  scorn  in  which  I  hold  his  [Mr.  O'Con- 
nell's] character,  and  the  disgust  with  which  his  conduct 
inspires  me ;"  and  informs  the  son  that  "  I  shall  take  every 
opportunity  of  holding  your  father's  name  up  to  public 
contempt,  and  I  fervently  pray  that  you  or  some  one  of 
your  blood  may  attempt  to  avenge  the  inextinguishable 
hatred  with  which  I  shall  pursue  his  existence."  In  read- 
ing of  a  controversy  like  this  between  two  public  men,  we 
seem  to  be  transported  back  to  an  age  having  absolutely 
nothing  in  common  with  our  own.  It  appears  almost  im- 
possible to  believe  that  men  still  active  in  political  life 
were  active  in  political  life  then.  Yet  this  is  not  the 
most  astonishing  specimen  of  the  sort  of  controversy  in 
which  Mr.  Disraeli  became  engaged  in  his  younger  days. 
Nothing,  perhaps,  that  the  political  literature  of  the  time 
preserves  could  exceed  the  ferocity  of  his  controversial 
duel  with  O'Connell;  but  there  are  many  samples  of  th^ 


Mr.  Disraeti.  y>^ 

rhetoric  of  abuse  to  be  found  in  the  journals  of  the  time 
which  would  far  less  bear  exposure  to  the  gaze  of  the 
fastidious  public  of  our  day.  The  duelling  system  sur- 
vived then  and  for  long  after,  and  Mr.  Disraeli  always 
professed  himself  ready  to  sustain  with  his  pistol  anything 
that  his  lips  might  have  given  utterance  to,  even  in  the 
reckless  heat  of  controversy.  The  social  temper  which  in 
our  time  insists  that  the  first  duty  of  a  gentleman  is  to 
apologize  for  an  unjust  or  offensive  expression  used  in  de- 
bate, was  unknown  then.  Perhaps  it  could  hardly  exist  to 
any  great  extent  in  the  company  of  the  duelling  system. 
When  a  man's  withdrawal  of  an  offensive  expression  might 
be  imputed  to  a  want  of  physical  courage,  the  courtesy 
which  impels  a  gentleman  to  atone  for  a  wrong  is  not 
likely  to  triumph  very  often  over  the  fear  of  being  ac- 
counted a  coward.  If  any  one  doubts  the  superiority  of 
manners  as  well  as  of  morals  which  comes  of  our  milder 
ways,  he  has  only  to  read  a  few  specimens  of  the  contro- 
versies of  Mr.  Disraeli's  earlier  days,  when  men  who 
aspired  to  be  considered  great  political  leaders  thought  it 
not  unbecoming  to  call  names  like  a  costermonger,  and  to 
swagger  like  Bobadil  or  the  Copper  Captain. 

Mr.  Disraeli  kept  himself  well  up  to  the  level  of  his 
time  in  the  calling  of  names  and  the  swaggering;  but  he 
was  making  himself  remarkable  in  political  controversy 
as  well.  In  the  House  of  Commons  he  began  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  dangerous  adversary  in  debate.  He  was 
wonderfully  ready  with  retort  and  sarcasm.  But  during 
all  the  earlier  part  of  his  career  he  was  thought  of  only  as 
a  free  lance.  He  had  praised  Peel  when  Peel  said  some- 
thing that  suited  him,  or  when  to  praise  Peel  seemed  likely 
to  wound  some  one  else.  But  it  was  during  the  debates 
on  the  abolition  of  the  Corn-laws  that  he  first  rose  to  the 
fame  of  a  great  debater  and  a  powerful  Parliamentary  ora- 
tor. We  use  the  words  Parliamentary  orator  with  the 
purpose  of  conveying  a  special  qualification.  He  is  a  great 
Parliamentary  orator  who  can  employ  the  kind  of  eloquence 


^04  ^  History  of  Our  Oivn  Times. 

and  argument  which  tell  most  readily  on  Parliament.  But 
it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  great  Parliamentary  ora- 
tor is  necessarily  a  great  orator  in  the  wider  sense.  Some 
of  the  men  who  made  the  greatest  successes  as  Parliament- 
ary orators  have  failed  to  win  any  genuine  reputation  as 
orators  of  the  broader  and  higher  school.  The  fame  of 
Charles  Townshend's  "champagne  speech"  has  vanished, 
evanescent  almost  as  the  bubbles  from  which  it  derived 
its  inspiration  and  its  name.  No  one  now  reads  many 
even  of  the  fragments  preserved  for  us  of  those  speeches 
of  Sheridan  which  those  who  heard  them  declared  to  have 
surpassed  all  ancient  and  modern  eloquence.  The  House 
of  Commons  often  found  Burke  dull,  and  the  speeches  of 
Burke  have  passed  into  English  literature  secure  of  a  per- 
petual place  there.  Mr.  Disraeli  never  succeeded  in  being 
more  than  a  Parliamentary  orator,  and  probably  would  not 
have  cared  to  be  anything  more.  But  even  at  this  com- 
paratively early  date,  and  while  he  had  still  the  reputation 
of  being  a  whimsical,  self-confident,  and  feather-headed 
adventurer,  he  soon  won  for  himself  the  name  of  one  who 
could  hold  his  own  in  retort  and  in  sarcasm  against  any 
antagonist.  The  days  of  the  more  elaborate  oratory  were 
going  by,  and  the  time  was  coming  when  the  pungent 
epigram,  the  sparkling  paradox,  the  rattling  attack,  the 
vivid  repartee,  would  count  for  the  most  attractive  part  of 
eloquence  with  the  House  of  Commons. 

Mr.  Disraeli  was  exactly  the  man  to  succeed  under  the 
new  conditions  of  Parliamentary  eloquence.  Hitherto 
he  had  wanted  a  cause  to  inspire  and  justify  audacity,  and 
on  which  to  employ  with  effect  his  remarkable  resources 
of  sarcasm  and  rhetoric.  Hitherto  he  had  addressed  an 
audience  out  of  sympathy  with  him  for  the  most  part. 
Now  he  was  about  to  become  the  spokesman  of  a  large 
body  of  men  who,  chafing  and  almost  choking  with  wrath, 
were  not  capable  of  speaking  effectively  for  themselves. 
Mr.  Disraeli  did,  therefore,  the  very  wisest  thing  he  could 
do  when  he  launched  at  once  into  a  savage  personal  attack 


Mr.  Disraeli.  ^05 

upon  Sir  Robert  Peel.  The  speech  abounds  in  passages 
of  audaciously  powerful  sarcasm.  "I  am  not  one  of  the 
converts,"  Mr.  Disraeli  said.  "  I  am  perhaps  a  member  of 
a  fallen  party.  To  the  opinions  which  I  have  expressed 
in  this  House  in  favor  of  Protection  I  still  adhere.  They 
sent  me  to  this  House,  and  if  I  had  relinquished  them  I 
should  have  relinquished  my  seat  also."  That  was  the 
key-note  of  the  speech.  He  denounced  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
not  for  having  changed  his  opinions,  but  for  having  re- 
tained a  position  which  enabled  him  to  betray  his  party. 
He  compared  Peel  to  the  Lord  High-Admiral  of  the  Turk- 
ish fleet,  who,  at  a  great  warlike  crisis,  when  he  was  placed 
at  the  head  of  the  finest  armament  that  ever  left  the  Dar- 
danelles since  the  days  of  Solyman  the  Great,  steered  at 
once  for  the  enemy's  port,  and  when  arraigned  as  a  traitor, 
said  that  he  really  saw  no  use  in  prolonging  a  hopeless 
struggle,  and  that  he  had  accepted  the  command  of  the 
fleet  only  to  put  the  Sultan  out  of  pain  by  bringing  the 
struggle  to  a  close  at  once.  "  Well  do  we  remember,  on 
this  side  of  the  House — not,  perhaps,  without  a  blush — the 
efforts  we  made  to  raise  him  to  the  bench  where  he  now 
sits.  Who  does  not  remember  the  sacred  cause  of  Protec- 
tion for  which  sovereigns  were  thwarted,  Parliament  dis- 
solved, and  a  nation  taken  in?"  "I  belong  to  a  party 
which  can  triumph  no  more,  for  we  have  nothing  left  on 
our  side  except  the  constituencies  which  we  have  not  be- 
trayed." He  denounced  Peel  as  "a  man  who  never  origi- 
nates an  idea;  a  watcher  of  the  atmosphere ;  a  man  who 
takes  his  observations,  and  when  he  finds  the  wind  in  a 
particular  quarter  trims  his  sails  to  suit  it,"  and  he  de- 
clared that  "such  a  man  may  be  a  powerful  minister,  but 
he  is  no  more  a  great  statesman  than  the  man  who  gets  up 
behind  a  carriage  is  a  great  whip. " 

"  The  opportune, "  says  Mr.  Disraeli  himself  in  his  "  Lord 

George  Bentinck,"  "in  a  popular  assembly  has  sometimes 

more  success  than  the  weightiest  efforts  of  research  and 

reason."     He  is  alluding  to  this  very  speech,  of  which  he 

Vol.  I. — 20 


^o6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

says,  with  perhaps  a  superfluous  modesty,  that  "it  was  the 
long-constrained  passion  of  the  House  that  now  found  a 
vent,  far  more  than  the  sallies  of  the  speaker,  that  changed 
the  frigid  silence  of  this  senate  into  excitement  and  tumult. " 
The  speech  was  indeed  opportune.  But  it  was  opportune 
in  a  far  larger  sense  than  as  a  timely  philippic  rattling  up 
an  exhausted  and  disappointed  House.  That  moment 
when  Disraeli  rose  was  the  very  turning-point  of  the  for- 
tunes of  his  party.  There  was  genius,  there  was  positive 
statesmanship,  in  seizing  so  boldly  and  so  adroitly  on  the 
moment.  It  would  have  been  a  great  thing  gained  for 
Peel  if  he  could  have  got  through  that  first  night  without 
any  alarm-note  of  opposition  from  his  own  side.  The  habits 
of  Parliamentary  discipline  are  very  clinging.  They  are 
hard  to  tear  away.  Every  impulse  of  association  and 
training  protests  against  the  very  effort  to  rend  them 
asunder.  A  once  powerful  minister  exercises  a  control 
over  his  long  obedient  followers  somewhat  like  that  of  the 
heart  of  the  Bruce  in  the  fine  old  Scottish  story.  Those 
who  once  followed  will  still  obey  the  name  and  the  symbol 
even  when  the  actual  power  to  lead  is  gone  forever.  If 
one  other  night's  habitude  had  been  added  to  the  long  dis- 
cipline that  bound  his  party  to  Peel,  if  they  had  allowed 
themselves  to  listen  to  that  declaration  of  the  session's 
first  night  without  murmur,  perhaps  they  might  never 
have  rebelled.  Mr.  Disraeli  drew  together  into  one  focus 
all  the  rays  of  their  gathering  anger  against  Peel,  and 
made  them  light  into  a  flame.  He  showed  the  genius  of 
the  born  leader  by  stepping  forth  at  the  critical  moment 
and  giving  the  word  of  command. 

From  that  hour  Mr.  Disraeli  was  the  real  leader  of  the 
Tory  squires;  from  that  moment  his  voice  gave  the  word 
of  command  to  the  Tory  party.  There  was  peculiar  cour- 
age, too,  in  the  part  he  took.  He  must  have  known  that 
he  was  open  to  one  retort  from  Peel  that  might  have 
crushed  a  less  confident  man.  It  was  well  known  that 
when  Peel  was  coming  into  power  Disraeli  expected  to  be 


Mr.  Disraeli.  307 

offered  a  place  of  some  kind  in  the  ministry,  and  would 
have  accepted  it.  Mr.  Disraeli  afterward  explained,  when 
Peel  made  allusion  to  the  fact,  that  he  never  had  put  him- 
self directly  forward  as  a  candidate  for  office,  but  there 
had  undoubtedly  been  some  negotiation  going  forward 
which  was  conducted  on  Mr.  Disraeli's  side  by  some  one 
who  supposed  he  was  doing  what  Disraeli  would  like  to 
have  done;  and  Peel  had  not  taken  any  hint,  and  would 
not  in  any  way  avail  himself  of  Disraeli's  services.  Dis- 
raeli must  have  known  that  when  he  attacked  Peel,  the  latter 
would  hardly  fail  to  make  use  of  this  obvious  retort ;  but  he 
felt  little  daunted  on  that  score.  He  could  have  made  a 
fair  enough  defence  of  his  consistency  in  any  case,  but  he 
knew  very  well  that  what  the  indignant  Tories  wanted  just 
then  was  not  a  man  who  had  been  uniformly  consistent, 
j)ut  one  who  could  attack  Sir  Robert  Peel  without  scruple 
and  with  effect.  Disraeli  made  his  own  career  by  the 
course  he  took  on  that  memorable  night,  and  he  also  made 
a  new  career  for  the  Tory  party. 

Now  that  he  had  proved  himself  so  brilliant  a  spadassin 
in  this  debate,  men  began  to  remember  that  he  had  dealt 
trenchant  blows  before.  Many  of  his  sentences  attacking 
Peel,  which  have  passed  into  familiar  quotation  almost  like 
proverbs,  were  spoken  in  1845.  He  had  accused  the  great 
minister  of  having  borrowed  his  tactics  from  the  Whigs. 
"  The  right  honorable  gentleman  caught  the  Whigs  bath- 
ing, and  he  walked  away  with  their  clothes.  He  has  left 
them  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  liberal  position,  and 
he  is  himself  a  strict  conservative  of  their  garments."  "  I 
look  on  the  right  honorable  gentleman  as  a  man  who  has 
tamed  the  shrew  of  Liberalism  by  her  own  tactics.  He  is 
the  political  Petruchio  who  has  outbid  you  all."  "If  the 
right  honorable  gentleman  would  only  stick  to  quotation, 
instead  of  having  recourse  to  obloquy,  he  may  rely  upon 
it  he  would  find  it  a  safer  weapon.  It  is  one  he  always 
wields  with  the  hand  of  a  master,  and  when  he  does  appeal 
to  any  authority  in  prose  or  verse,  he  is  sure  to  be  success- 


3o8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

ful,  partly  because  he  seldom  quotes  a  passage  that  has 
not  already  received  the  meed  of  Parliamentary  approba- 
tion." We  can  all  readily  understand  how  such  a  hit  as 
the  last  would  tell  in  the  case  of  an  orator  like  Peel,  who 
had  the  old-fashioned  way  of  introducing  long  quotations 
from  approved  classic  authors  into  his  speeches,  and  who 
not  unfrequently  introduced  citations  which  were  received 
with  all  the  better  welcome  by  the  House  because  of  the 
familiarity  of  their  language.  More  fierce  and  cutting 
was  the  reference  to  Canning,  with  whom  Peel  had  quar- 
relled, and  the  implied  contrast  of  Canning  with  Peel. 
Sir  Robert  had  cited  against  Disraeli  Canning's  famous 
lines  praying  to  be  saved  from  a  "  candid  friend. "  Disraeli 
seized  the  opportunity  thus  gi  ven.  "  The  name  of  Canning 
is  one,"  he  said,  "never  to  be  mentioned,  I  am  sure,  in 
this  House  without  emotion.  We  all  admire  his  genius; 
we  all,  or  at  least  most  of  us,  deplore  his  untimely  end; 
and  we  all  sympathize  with  him  in  his  severe  struggle  with 
supreme  prejudice  and  sublime  mediocrity,  with  inveter- 
ate foes  and  with  candid  friends."  The  phase  "sublime 
mediocrity"  had  a  marvellous  effect.  As  a  hostile  descrip- 
tion of  Peel's  character  it  had  enough  of  seeming  truth 
about  it  to  tell  most  effectively  alike  on  friends  and  ene- 
mies of  the  great  leader.  A  friend,  or  even  an  impartial 
enemy,  would  not  indeed  admit  that  it  accurately  described 
Peel's  intellect  and  position;  but  as  a  stroke  of  personal 
satire  it  touched  nearly  enough  the  characteristics  of  its 
object  to  impress  itself  at  once  as  a  master-hit  on  the 
minds  of  all  who  caught  its  instant  purpose.  The  words 
remained  in  use  long  after  the  controversy  and  its  occasion 
had  passed  away ;  and  it  was  allowed  that  an  unfriendly 
and  bitter  critic  could  hardly  have  found  a  phrase  more 
suited  to  its  ungenial  purpose  or  more  likely  to  connect 
itself  at  once  in  the  public  mind  with  the  name  of  him  who 
was  its  object.  Mr.  Disraeli  did  not,  in  fact,  greatly  ad- 
mire Canning.  He  has  left  a  very  disparaging  criticism 
of  Canning  as  an  orator  in  one  of  his  novels.     On  the  other 


Mr.   Disraeli.  309 

hand,  he  has  shown  in  his  "  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck" 
that  he  could  do  full  justice  to  some  of  the  greatest  quali- 
ties of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  But  at  the  moment  of  his  attack- 
ing Peel  and  crying  up  Canning  he  was  only  concerned  to 
disparage  the  one,  and  it  was  on  this  account  that  he 
eulogized  the  other.  The  famous  sentence,  too,  in  which 
he  declared  that  a  Conservative  Government  was  an  "  or- 
ganized hypocrisy,"  was  spoken  during  the  debates  of  the 
session  of  1845,  before  the  explanation  of  the  minister  on 
the  subject  of  Free-trade.  All  these  brilliant  things  men 
now  began  to  recall.  Looking  back  from  this  distance  of 
time,  we  can  see  well  enough  that  Mr.  Disraeli  had  dis- 
played his  peculiar  genius  long  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons took  the  pains  to  recognize  it.  From  the  night  of  the 
opening  of  the  session  of  1846  it  was  never  questioned. 
Thenceforward  he  was  really  the  mouthpiece  and  the 
sense-carrier  of  his  party.  For  some  time  to  come,  indeed, 
his  nominal  post  might  have  seemed  to  be  only  that  of  its 
bravo.  The  country  gentlemen  who  cheered  to  the  echo 
his  fierce  attacks  on  Peel  during  the  debates  of  the  session 
of  1846  had  probably  not  the  slightest  suspicion  that  the 
daring  rhetorician  who  was  so  savagely  revenging  them 
on  their  now  hated  leader  was  a  man  of  as  cool  a  judg- 
ment, as  long  a  head,  and  as  complete  a  capacity  for  the 
control  of  a  party  as  any  politician  who  for  generations 
had  appeared  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

One  immediate  effect  of  the  turn  thus  given  by  Disraeli's 
timely  intervention  in  the  debate  was  the  formation  of  a 
Protection  party  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  leader- 
ship of  this  perilous  adventure  was  intrusted  to  Lord 
George  Bentinck,  a  sporting  nobleman  of  energetic  char- 
acter, great  tenacity  of  purpose  and  conviction,  and  a  not 
inconsiderable  aptitude  for  politics,  which  had  hitherto 
had  no  opportunity  for  either  exercising  or  displaying  it- 
self. Lord  George  Bentinck  had  sat  in  eight  Parliaments 
without  taking  part  in  any  great  debate.  When  he  was 
suddenly  drawn  into  the  leadership  of  the  Protection  party 


^10  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  gave  himself  up  to  it  en- 
tirely. He  had  at  first  only  joined  the  party  as  one  of  its 
organizers;  but  he  showed  himself  in  many  respects  well 
fitted  for  the  leadership,  and  the  choice  of  leaders  was  in 
any  case  very  limited.  When  once  he  had  accepted  the 
position,  he  was  unwearying  in  his  attention  to  its  duties; 
and,  indeed,  up  to  the  moment  of  his  sudden  and  premature 
death  he  never  allowed  himself  any  relaxation  from  the 
cares  it  imposed  on  him.  Mr.  Disraeli,  in  his  "  Life  of 
Lord  George  Bentinck,"  has  indeed  overrated,  with  the 
pardonable  extravagance  of  friendship,  the  intellectual 
gifts  of  his  leader.  Bentinck's  abilities  were  hardly  even 
of  the  second  class;  and  the  amount  of  knowledge  which 
he  brought  to  bear  on  the  questions  he  discussed  with  so 
much  earnestness  and  energy  was  often  and  of  necessity 
little  better  than  mere  cram.  But  in  Parliament  the  es- 
sential qualities  of  a  leader  are  not  great  powers  of  intel- 
lect. A  man  of  cool  head,  good  temper,  firm  will,  and 
capacity  for  appreciating  the  serviceable  qualities  of  other 
men,  may  always,  provided  that  he  has  high  birth  and 
great  social  influence,  make  a  very  successful  leader,  even 
though  he  be  wanting  altogether  in  the  higher  attributes 
of  eloquence  and  statesmanship.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether,  on  the  whole,  great  eloquence  and  genius  are 
necessary  at  all  to  the  leader  of  a  party  in  Parliament  in 
times  not  specially  troublous.  Bentinck  had  patience, 
energy,  good-humor,  and  considerable  appreciation  of  the 
characters  of  men.  If  he  had  a  bad  voice,  was  a  poor 
speaker,  talked  absolute  nonsense  about  protective  duties 
and  sugar  and  guano,  and  made  up  absurd  calculations  to 
prove  impossibilities  and  paradoxes,  he  at  least  always 
spoke  in  full  faith,  and  was  only  the  more  necessary  to 
his  party  because  he  could  honestly  continue  to  believe  in 
the  old  doctrines,  no  matter  what  political  economy  and 
hard  facts  might  say  to  the  contrary. 

The  secession  was,  therefore,  in  full  course  of  organiza- 
tion.    On  January  27th  Sir  Robert  Peel  came  forward  to 


Mr.  Disraeli.  311 

explain  his  financial  policy.  It  is  almost  superfluous  to 
say  that  the  most  intense  anxiety  prevailed  all  over  the 
country,  and  that  the  House  was  crowded.  An  incident 
of  the  night,  which  then  created  a  profound  sensation, 
would  not  be  worth  noticing  now  but  for  the  evidence  it 
gives  of  the  bitterness  with  which  the  Protection  party 
were  filled,  and  of  the  curiously  bad  taste  of  which  gentle- 
men of  position  and  education  can  be  guilty  under  the  in- 
spiration of  a  blind  fanaticism.  There  is  something  ludi- 
crous in  the  pompous  tone,  as  of  righteous  indignation 
deliberately  repressed,  with  which  Mr.  Disraeli  in  his 
"Life  of  Bentinck,"  announces  the  event.  The  proceed- 
ings in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  says,  "  were  ushered  in 
by  a  startling  occurrence."  What  was  this  portentous 
preliminary?  "His  Royal  Highness  the  Prince  Consort, 
attended  by  the  Master  of  the  Horse,  appeared  and  took 
his  seat  in  the  body  of  the  House  to  listen  to  the  statement 
of  the  First  Minister."  In  other  words,  there  was  to  be  a 
statement  of  great  importance  and  a  debate  of  profound 
interest,  and  the  husband  of  the  Queen  was  anxious  to  be 
a  listener.  The  Prince  Consort  did  not  imderstand  that 
because  he  had  married  the  Queen  he  was  therefore  to  be 
precluded  from  hearing  a  discussion  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  poorest  man  and  the  greatest  man  in  the  land 
were  alike  free  to  occupy  a  seat  in  one  of  the  galleries  of 
the  House,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  the  Prince 
Consort  fancied  that  he  too  might  listen  to  a  debate  with- 
out unhinging  the  British  Constitution.  Lord  George 
Bentinck  and  the  Protectionists  were  aflame  with  indigna- 
tion. They  saw  in  the  quiet  presence  of  the  intelligent 
gentleman  who  came  to  listen  to  the  discussion  an  attempt 
to  overawe  the  Commons  and  compel  them  to  bend  to  the 
will  of  the  Crown.  It  is  not  easy  to  read  without  a  feeling  of 
shame  the  absurd  and  unseemly  comments  which  were  made 
upon  this  harmless  incident.  The  Queen  herself  has  given 
an  explanation  of  the  Prince's  visit  which  is  straightfor- 
ward and  dignified,  "  The  Prince  merely  went,  as  the  Prince 


^12  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

of  Wales  and  the  Queen's  other  sons  do,  for  once,  to  hear 
a  fine  debate  which  is  so  useful  to  all  princes. "  "  But  this," 
the  Queen  adds,  "he  naturally  felt  unable  to  do  again." 

The  Prime-minister  announced  his  policy.  His  object 
was  to  abandon  the  sliding-scale  altogether;  but  for  the 
present  he  intended  to  impose  a  duty  of  ten  shillings  a 
quarter  on  corn  when  the  price  of  it  was  under  forty-eight 
shillings  a  quarter;  to  reduce  that  duty  by  one  shilling  for 
every  shilling  of  rise  in  price  until  it  reached  fifty-three 
shillings  a  quarter,  when  the  duty  should  fall  to  four  shil- 
lings. This  arrangement  was,  however,  only  to  hold  good 
for  three  years,  at  the  end  of  which  time  protective  duties 
on  grain  were  to  be  wholly  abandoned.  Peel  explained 
that  he  intended  gradually  to  apply  the  principle  of  Free- 
trade  to  manufactures  and  every  description  of  produce, 
bearing  in  mind  the  necessity  of  providing  for  the  expen- 
diture of  the  country,  and  of  smoothing  away  some  of  the 
difficulties  which  a  sudden  withdrawal  of  protection  might 
cause.  The  differential  duties  on  sugar,  which  were  pro- 
fessedly intended  to  protect  the  growers  of  free  sugars 
against  the  competition  of  those  who  cultivated  sugar  by 
the  use  of  slave  labor,  were  to  be  diminished,  but  not 
abolished.  The  duties  on  the  importation  of  foreign  cattle 
were  to  be  at  once  removed.  In  order  to  compensate  the 
agricultural  interests  for  the  gradual  withdrawal  of  pro- 
tective duties,  there  were  to  be  some  readjustments  of  local 
burdens.  We  need  not  dwell  much  on  this  part  of  the  ex- 
planation. We  are  familiar  in  late  years  with  the  ingeni- 
ous manner  in  which  the  principle  of  the  readjustment  of 
local  burdens  is  worked  in  the  hope  of  conciliating  the  agri- 
cultural interests.  These  readjustments  are  not  usually  re- 
ceived with  any  great  gratitude  or  attended  by  any  particu- 
lar success.  In  this  instance  Sir  Robert  Peel  could  hardly 
have  laid  much  serious  stress  on  them.  If  the  land-owners 
and  farmers  had  really  any  just  ground  of  complaint  in  the 
abolition  of  protection,  the  salve  which  was  applied  to  their 
wound  would  scarcely  have  caused  them  to  forget  its  pains. 


Mr.  Disraeli.  3 1  j 

The  imiDortant  part  of  the  explanation,  so  far  as  history  is 
concerned,  consisted  in  the  fact  that  Peel  proclaimed  him- 
self an  absolute  convert  to  the  Free-trade  principle,  and  that 
the  introduction  of  the  principle  into  all  departments  of 
our  commercial  legislation  was,  according  to  his  intention, 
to  be  a  mere  question  of  time  and  convenience.  The 
struggle  was  to  be  between  Protection  and  Free-trade. 

Not  that  the  proposals  of  the  ministry  wholly  satisfied 
the  professed  Free-traders.  These  latter  would  have  en- 
forced, if  they  could,  an  immediate  application  of  the 
principle  without  the  interval  of  three  years,  and  the 
devices  and  shifts  which  were  to  be  put  in  operation  dur- 
ing that  middle  time.  But  of  course,  although  they 
pressed  their  protest  in  the  form  of  an  amendment,  they 
had  no  idea  of  not  taking  what  they  could  get  when  the 
amendment  failed  to  secure  the  approval  of  the  majority. 
The  Protectionist  amendment  amounted  to  a  distinct  pro- 
posal that  the  policy  of  the  Government  be  absolutely  re- 
jected by  the  House.  The  debate  lasted  for  twelve  nights, 
and  at  the  end  the  Protectionists  had  240  votes  against  337 
given  on  behalf  of  the  policy  of  the  Government.  The 
majority  of  97  was  not  quite  so  large  as  the  Government 
had  anticipated ;  and  the  result  was  to  encourage  the  Pro- 
tectionists in  their  plans  of  opposition.  The  opportunities 
of  obstruction  were  many.  The  majority  just  mentioned 
was  merely  in  favor  of  going  into  committee  of  the  whole 
House  to  consider  the  existing  Customs  and  Corn  Acts ; 
but  every  single  financial  scheme  which  the  minister  had 
to  propose  must  be  introduced,  debated,  and  carried,  if  it 
was  to  be  carried,  as  a  separate  bill.  We  shall  not  ask 
our  readers  to  follow  us  into  the  details  of  these  long 
discussions.  They  were  not  important ;  they  were  often 
not  dignified.  They  more  frequently  concerned  themselves 
about  the  conduct  and  personal  consistency  of  the  minister 
than  about  the  merits  of  his  policy.  The  arguments  in 
favor  of  Protection,  which  doubtless  seemed  effective  to 
the  country  gentlemen  then,  seem  like  the  prattle  of  chil- 


314  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

dren  now.       There  were,  indeed,  some  exciting  passages 
in  the  debates.     For  these  the  House  was  mainly  indebted 
to  the  rhetoric  of  Mr.  Disraeli.     That  indefatigable  and 
somewhat  reckless  champion  occupied  himself  with  inces- 
sant attacks  on  the  Prime-minister.     He  described  Peel 
as  "a  trader  on  other  people's  intelligence,  a  political 
burglar  of  other  men's  ideas."     "The  occupants  of  the 
Treasury  bench,"  he  said, were  "political  peddlers, who  had 
bought  their  party  in  the  cheapest  market  and  sold  it  in 
the  dearest."     This  was  strong  language.      But  it  was, 
after  all,  more  justifiable  than  the  attempt  Mr.  Disraeli 
made  to  revive  an  old  and  bitter  controversy  between  Sir 
Robert  Peel  and  Mr.  Cobden,  which,  for  the  sake  of  the 
former,   had  better  have   been   forgotten.     Three   years 
before,  Mr.  Edward  Drummond,  private  secretary  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  was  shot  by  an  assassin.     There  could  be 
no  doubt  that  the  victim  had  been  mistaken  for  the  Prime- 
minister  himself.     The  assassin  turned  out  to  be  a  lunatic, 
and  as  such  was  found  not  guilty  of  the  murder,  and  was 
consigned  to  a  lunatic  asylum.     The  event  naturally  had 
a  profound  effect  on  Sir  Robert  Peel ;  and  during  one  of 
the  debates  on  Free-trade,  Mr.  Cobden  happening  to  say 
that  he  would  hold  the  Prime-minister  responsible  for  the 
condition  of  the  country.  Peel,  in  an  extraordinary  burst  of 
exitement,  interpreted  the  words  as  a  threat  to  expose  him 
to  the  attack  of  an  assassin.     Nothing  could  be  more  pain- 
fully absurd ;  and  nothing  could  better  show  the  unreason- 
ing and  discreditable  hatred  of  the  Tories  at  that  time  for 
any  one  who  opposed  the  policy  of   Peel  than  the  fact  that 
they  actually  cheered  their  leader  again  and  again  when 
he  made  this  passionate  and  half-frenzied  charge  on  one 
of  the  purest  and  noblest  men  who  ever  sat  in  the  English 
Parliament.     Peel  soon  recovered  his  senses.     He  saw  the 
error  of  which  he  had  been  guilty,  and  regretted  it;  and 
it  ought  to  have  been  consigned  to  forgetfulness ;  but  Mr. 
Disraeli,  in  repelling  a  charge  made  against  him  of  in- 
dulging in  unju.stifiable  personalities,  revived  the  whole 


Mr.  Disraeli.  ^15 

story,  and  reminded  the  House  of  Commons  that  the 
Prime-minister  had  charged  the  leader  of  the  Free-trade 
League  with  inciting  assassins  to  murder  him.  This  un- 
justifiable attempt  to  rekindle  an  old  .quarrel  had,  how- 
ever, no  other  effect  than  to  draw  from  Sir  Robert  Peel  a 
renewed  expression  of  apology  for  the  charge  he  had  made 
against  Mr.  Cobden,  "  in  the  course  of  a  heated  debate, 
when  I  put  an  erroneous  construction  on  some  expressions 
used  by  the  honorable  member  for  Stockport."  Mr.  Cob- 
den declared  that  the  explanation  made  by  Peel  was 
entirely  satisfactory,  and  expressed  his  hope  that  no  one 
on  either  side  of  the  House  would  attempt  to  revive  the 
siibject  or  make  further  allusion  to  it. 

The  Government  prevailed.  It  would  be  superfluous  to 
go  into  any  details  as  to  the  progress  of  the  Corn  Bill. 
Enough  to  say  that  the  third  reading  of  the  bill  passed 
the  House  of  Commons  on  May  15th,  by  a  majority  of  98 
votes.  The  bill  was  at  once  sent  up  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  and,  by  means  chiefly  of  the  earnest  advice  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  was  carried  through  that  House 
without  much  serious  opposition.  But  June  25th,  the  day 
when  the  bill  was  read  for  a  third  time  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  was  a  memorable  day  in  the  Parliamentary  annals 
of  England.  It  saw  the  fall  of  the  ministry  who  had  car- 
ried to  success  the  greatest  piece  of  legislation  that  had 
been  introduced  since  Lord  Grey's  Reform  Bill. 

A  Coercion  Bill  for  Ireland  was  the  measure  which 
brought  this  catastrophe  on  the  Government  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel.  While  the  Com  Bill  was  yet  passing  through  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  Government  felt  called  upon,  in 
consequence  of  the  condition  of  crime  and  outrage  in 
Ireland,  to  introduce  a  Coercion  Bill.  Lord  George  Ben- 
tinck  at  first  gave  the  measure  his  support ;  but  during 
the  Whitsuntide  recess  he  changed  his  views.  He  now 
declared  that  he  had  only  supported  the  bill  on  the  assur- 
ance of  the  Government  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
for  the  safety  of  life  in  Ireland,  and  that  as  the  Govern- 


^i6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ment  had  not  pressed  it  on  in  advance  of  every  other 
measure — especially,  no  doubt,  of  the  Corn  Bill — he  could 
not  believe  that  it  was  really  a  matter  of  imminent  neces- 
sity; and  that,  furthermore,  he  had  no  longer  any  con- 
fidence in  the  Government,  and  could  not  trust  them  with 
extraordinary  powers.  In  truth,  the  bill  was  placing  the 
Government  in  a  serious  difficulty.  All  the  Irish  followers 
of  O'Connell  would,  of  course,  oppose  the  coercion 
measure.  The  Whigs,  when  out  of  office,  have  usually 
made  it  a  rule  to  oppose  coercion  bills,  if  they  do  not  come 
accompanied  with  some  promises  of  legislative  reform  and 
concession.  The  English  Radical  members,  Mr.  Cobden 
and  his  followers,  were  almost  sure  to  oppose  it.  Under 
these  circumstances,  it  seemed  probable  enough  that  if  the 
Protectionists  joined  with  the  other  opponents  of  the 
Coercion  Bill,  the  Government  must  be  defeated.  The 
temptation  was  too  great.  As  Mr.  Disraeli  himself  can- 
didly says  of  his  party,  "  Vengeance  had  succeeded  in  most 
breasts  to  the  more  sanguine  sentiment.  The  field  was 
lost,  but  at  any  rate  there  should  be  retribution  for  those 
who  had  betrayed  it."  The  question  with  many  of  the 
indignant  Protectionists  was,  as  Mr.  Disraeli  himself  puts 
it,  "  How  was  Sir  Robert  Peel  to  be  turned  out?"  It 
soon  became  evident  that  he  could  be  turned  out  by  those 
who  detested  him  and  longed  for  vengeance  voting  against 
him  on  the  Coercion  Bill.  This  was  done.  The  fiercer 
Protectionists  voted  with  the  Free-traders,  the  Whigs,  and 
the  Irish  Catholic  and  Liberal  members,  and,  after  a  de- 
bate of  much  bitterness  and  passion,  the  division  on  the 
second  reading  of  the  Coercion  Bill  took  place  on  Thurs- 
day, June  25th,  and  the  ministry  were  left  in  a  minority 
of  73.  Two  hundred  and  nineteen  votes  only  were  given 
for  the  second  reading  of  the  bill,  and  292  against  it. 
Some  eighty  of  the  Protectionists  followed  Lord  George 
Bentinck  into  the  lobby  to  vote  against  the  bill,  and  their 
votes  settled  the  question.  Mr.  Disraeli  has  given  a 
somewhat  pompous  description  of  the  scene  "  as  the  Pro- 


Mr.   Disraeli.  317 

tectionists  passed  in  defile  before  the  minister  to  the  hos- 
tile lobby. "  "  PaUas  tc  hoc  viil/icre,  Pallas  immolat"  cries  the 
hero  of  the  yEneid,  as  he  plunges  his  sword  into  the  heart 
of  his  rival.  "  Protection  kills  you,  not  your  Coercion 
Bill,"  the  irreconcilable  Protectionists  might  have  said  as 
they  trooped  past  the  ministry.  Chance  had  put  within 
their  grasp  the  means  of  vengeance,  and  they  had  seized  it. 
The  Peel  Ministry  had  fallen  in  its  very  hour  of  triumph. 
Three  days  after  Sir  Robert  Peel  announced  his  resigna- 
tion of  office.  His  speech  "  was  considered  one  of  glorifica- 
tion and  pique,"  says  Mr.  Disraeli.  It  does  not  so  impress 
most  readers.  It  appears  to  have  been  full  of  dignity, 
and  of  emotion,  not  usual  with  Peel,  but  not  surely,  under 
the  circumstances,  incompatible  with  dignity.  It  contained 
that  often-quoted  tribute  to  the  services  of  a  former  op- 
ponent, in  which  Peel  declared  that  "  the  name  which 
ought  to  be  and  which  will  be  associated  with  the  success 
of  these  measures  is  the  name  of  the  man  who,  acting,  I 
believe,  from  pure  and  disinterested  motives,  has  advo- 
cated their  cause  with  untiring  energ}',  and  with  appeals 
to  reason  enforced  by  an  eloquence  the  more  to  be  admired 
because  it  is  imafifected  and  imadorned, — the  name  of 
Richard  Cobden."  An  added  effect  was  given  to  this  well 
deserved  panegyric  by  the  little  irregularity  which  the 
Prime-minister  committed  when  he  mentioned  in  debate 
a  member  by  name.  The  closing  sentence  of  the  speech 
was  eloquent  and  touching.  Many  would  censure  him, 
Peel  said;  his  name  would  perhaps  be  execrated  by  th,e 
monopolist,  who  would  maintain  protection  for  his  own 
individual  benefit;  "but  it  may  be  that  I  shall  leave  a 
name  sometimes  remembered  with  expressions  of  good- 
will in  those  places  which  are  the  abode  of  men  whose  lot 
it  is  to  labor  and  to  earn  their  daily  bread  by  the  sweat  of 
their  brow — a  name  remembered  with  expressions  of  good- 
will when  they  shall  recreate  their  exhausted  strength 
with  abundant  and  untaxed  food,  the  sweeter  because  it 
is  no  longer  leavened  with  a  sense  of  injustice." 


3i8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

The  great  minister  fell.  So  great  a  success  followed 
by  so  sudden  and  complete  a  fall  is  hardly  recorded  in  the 
Parliamentary  history  of  our  modern  times.  Peel  had 
crushed  O'Connell  and  carried  Free-trade,  and  O'Con- 
nell  and  the  Protectionists  had  life  enough  yet  to 
pull  him  down.  He  is  as  a  conqueror  who,  having  won 
the  great  victory  of  his  life,  is  struck  by  a  hostile 
hand  in  some  by-way  as  he  passes  home  to  enjoy  his 
triumph. 


CHAPTER     XVII. 

FAMINE,    COMMERCIAL  TROUBLE,    AND  FOREIGN  INTRIGUE. 

Lord  John  Russell  succeeded  Sir  Robert  Peel  as  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury ;  Lord  Palmerston  became  Foreign 
Secretary;  Sir  Charles  Wood  was  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer ;  Lord  Grey  took  charge  of  the  Colonies ;  and  Sir 
George  Grey  was  Home  Secretary.  Mr.  Macaulay  accepted 
the  office  of  Paymaster-general,  with  a  seat  in  the  cabinet, 
a  distinction  not  usually  given  to  the  occupant  of  that 
office.  The  ministry  was  not  particularly  strong  in 
administrative  talent.  The  Premier  and  the  Foreign 
Secretary  were  the  only  members  of  the  cabinet  who  could 
be  called  statesmen  of  the  first  class;  and  even  Lord 
Palmerston  had  not  as  yet  won  more  than  a  somewhat 
doubtful  kind  of  fame,  and  was  looked  upon  as  a  man  quite 
as  likely  to  do  mischief  as  good  to  any  ministry  of  which 
he  might  happen  to  form  a  part  Lord  Grey  then  and 
since  only  succeeded  somehow  in  missing  the  career  of  a 
leading  statesman.  He  had  great  talents  and  some  orig- 
inality;  he  was  independent  and  bold.  But  his  independ- 
ence degenerated  too  often  into  impracticability  and  even 
eccentricity ;  and  he  was,  in  fact,  a  politician  with  whom 
ordinary  men  could  not  work.  Sir  Charles  Wood,  the  new 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  had  solid  sense  and  excellent 
administrative  capacity,  but  he  was  about  as  bad  a  public 
speaker  as  ever  addressed  the  House  of  Commons.  His 
budget  speeches  were  often  made  so  unintelligible  by 
defective  manner  and  delivery  that  they  might  almost  as 
well  have  been  spoken  in  a  foreign  language.  Sir  George 
Grey  was  a  speaker  of  fearful  fluency,  and  a  respectable 


320  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

administrator  of  the  second  or  third  class.  He  was  as 
plodding  in  administration  as  he  was  precipitate  of  speech. 

"  Peel,"  wrote  Lord  Palmerston  to  a  friend  a  short  time 
after  the  formation  of  the  new  ministry,  "  seems  to  have 
made  up  his  mind  that  for  a  year  or  two  he  cannot  hope  to 
form  a  party,  and  that  he  must  give  people  a  certain  time 
to  forget  the  events  of  last  year;  in  the  mean  while,  it  is 
evident  that  he  does  not  wish  that  any  other  Government 
should  be  formed  out  of  the  people  on  his  side  of  the 
House,  because  of  that  Government  he  would  not  be  a 
member.  For  these  reasons,  and  also  because  he  sincerely 
thinks  it  best  that  we  should,  for  the  present,  remain  in, 
he  gives  us  very  cordial  support,  as  far  as  he  can  without 
losing  his  independent  position.  Graham,  who  sits  up 
under  his  old  pillar,  and  never  comes  down  to  Peel's  bench 
even  for  personal  communications,  seems  to  keep  himself 
aloof  from  everybody,  and  to  hold  himself  free  to  act 
according  to  circumstances ;  but  as  yet  he  is  not  considered 
as  the  head  of  any  party.  George  Bentinck  has  entirely 
broken  down  as  a  candidate  for  ministerial  position;  and 
thus  we  are  left  masters  of  the  field,  not  only  on  account 
of  our  own  merits,  which,  though  we  say  it  ourselves,  are 
great,  but  by  virtue  of  the  absence  of  an}'  efficient  compet- 
itors." Palmerston's  humorous  estimate  of  the  state  of 
affairs  was  accurate.  The  new  ministry  was  safe  enough, 
because  there  was  no  party  in  a  condition  to  compete  with 
it. 

The  position  of  the  Government  of  Lord  John  Russell 
was  not  one  to  be  envied.  The  Irish  famine  occupied  all 
attention,  and  soon  seemed  to  be  an  evil  too  great  for  any 
ministry  to  deal  with.  The  failure  of  the  potato  was  an 
overwhelming  disaster  for  a  people  almost  wholly  agricul- 
tural and  a  peasantry  long  accustomed  to  live  upon  that 
root  alone.  Ireland  contains  very  few  large  towns;  when 
the  names  of  four  or  five  are  mentioned  the  list  is  done 
with,  and  we  have  to  come  to  mere  villages.  The  country 
has  hardly  any  manufactures  except  that  of  linen  in  the 


famine.  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue.  ^21 

norfhern  province.  In  the  south  and  west  the  people  live 
J;y  agriculture  alone.  The  cottier  system,  which  prevailed 
i».lmost  universally  in  three  of  the  four  provinces,  was  an 
arrangement  by  which  a  man  obtained  in  return  for  his 
labor  a  right  to  cultivate  a  little  patch  of  ground,  just 
enough  to  supply  him  with  food  for  the  scanty  maintenance 
of  his  family.  The  great  landlords  were  for  the  most  part 
absentees ;  the  smaller  landlords  were  often  deeply  in  debt, 
and  were,  therefore,  compelled  to  screw  every  possible 
penny  of  rent  out  of  their  tenants-at-will.  They  had  not, 
however,  even  that  regularity  and  order  in  their  exac- 
tions that  might  at  least  have  forced  upon  the  tenants 
some  habits  of  forethought  and  exactness.  There  was  a 
sort  of  understanding  that  the  rent  was  always  to  be  some- 
what in  arrear;  the  supposed  kindness  of  a  landlord  con- 
sisted in  his  allowing  the  indebtedness  to  increase  more 
liberally  than  others  of  his  class  would  do.  There  was  a 
demoralizing  slatternliness  in  the  whole  system.  It  was 
almost  certain  that  if  a  tenant,  by  greatly  increased  indus- 
try and  good  fortune,  made  the  land  which  he  held  more 
valuable  than  before,  his  rent  would  at  once  be  increased. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  was  held  an  act  of  t3Tanny  to  dispos- 
sess him  so  long  as  he  made  even  any  fair  promise  of  pay- 
ing up.  There  was,  therefore,  a  thoroughly  vicious  system 
established  all  round,  demoralizing  alike  to  the  landlord 
and  the  tenant.  Underlying  all  the  relations  of  landlord 
and  tenant  in  Ireland  were  two  great  facts.  The  occupa- 
tion of  land  was  virtually  a  necessity  of  life  to  the  Irish 
tenant.  That  is  the  first  fact.  The  second  is  that  the 
land  system  under  which  Ireland  was  placed  was  one  en- 
tirely foreign  to  the  traditions,  the  ideas,  one  might  say 
the  very  genius,  of  the  Irish  people.  Whether  the  system 
introduced  by  conquest  and  confiscation  was  better  than  the 
old  one  or  not  does  not  in  the  slightest  degree  affect  the 
working  of  this  fact  on  the  relations  between  the  landlord 
and  the  tenant  in  Ireland.  No  one  will  be  able  to  under- 
stand the  whole  meaning  and  bearing  of  the  long  land 
Vol.  I. — 21 


^22  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

struggle  in  Ireland  who  does  not  clearly  get  into  his  mind 
the  fact  that,  rightly  or  wrongly,  the  Irish  peasant  re- 
garded the  right  to  have  a  bit  of  land,  his  share,  exactly 
as  other  peoples  regard  the  right  to  live.  It  was  in  his 
mind  something  elementary  and  self-evident.  He  could 
not  be  loyal  to,  he  could  not  even  understand  any  sys- 
tem which  did  not  secure  that  to  him.  According  to 
Michelet,  the  land  is  the  French  peasant's  mistress.  It 
was  the  Irish  peasant's  life. 

The  Irish  peasant,  with  his  wife  and  his  family,  lived 
on  the  potato.  Hardly  in  any  country  coming  within  the 
pale  of  civilization  was  there  to  be  found  a  whole  peasant 
population  dependent  for  their  living  on  one  single  root. 
When  the  potato  failed  in  1845  the  life-system  of  the  peo- 
ple seemed  to  have  given  way.  At  first  it  was  not  thought 
that  the  failure  must  necessarily  be  anything  more  than 
partial.  But  it  soon  began  to  appear  that  for  at  least  two 
seasons  the  whole  food  of  the  peasant  population  and  of  the 
poor  in  towns  was  absolutely  gone.  Lord  John  Russell's 
Government  pottered  with  the  difficulty  rather  than  en- 
countered it.  In  their  excuse  it  has  to  be  said,  of  course, 
that  the  calamity  they  had  to  meet  was  unprecedented,  and 
that  it  must  have  tried  the  resources  of  the  most  energetic 
and  foreseeing  statesmanship.  Still,  the  fact  remains  that 
the  measures  of  the  Government  were  at  first  utterly  in- 
adequate to  the  occasion,  and  that  afterward  some  of  them 
were  even  calculated  to  make  bad  worse.  Not  a  county 
in  Ireland  wholly  escaped  the  potato  disease,  and  many  of 
the  southern  and  western  counties  were  soon  in  actual 
famine.  A  peculiar  form  of  fever — famine-fever  it  was 
called — began  to  show  itself  everywhere.  A  terrible 
dysenter)'-  set  in  as  well.  In  some  districts  the  people 
died  in  hundreds  daily  from  fever,  dysentery,  or  sheer 
starvation.  The  districts  of  Skibbereen,  Skull,  Westport, 
and  other  places  obtained  a  ghastly  supremacy  in  misery. 
In  some  of  these  districts  the  parochial  authorities  at  last 
declined  to  put  the  rate-pa5'-ers  to  the  expense  of  coffins 


Famine,  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue.   )2} 

for  the  too  frequent  dead.  The  coroners  declared  it  im- 
possible to  keep  on  holding  inquests.  There  was  no  time 
for  all  the  ceremonies  of  that  kind  that  would  have  to  be 
gone  through  if  they  made  any  pretence  at  keeping  up  the 
system  of  ordinary  seasons.  In  other  places  where  the 
formula  was  still  kept  up  the  juries  added  to  their  verdicts 
of  death  by  starvation  some  charge  of  wilful  murder 
against  Lord  John  Russell  or  the  Lord-lieutenant,  or 
some  other  official  whose  supposed  neglect  was  set  down 
as  the  cause  of  the  death.  Unfortunately  the  Government 
had  to  show  an  immense  activity  in  the  introduction  of 
coercion  bills  and  other  repressive  measures.  It  would 
have  been  impossible  that  in  such  a  country  as  Ireland  a 
famine  of  that  gigantic  kindshouldset  in  without  bringing 
crimes  of  violence  along  with  it.  The  peasantry  had 
a  ways  hated  the  land  tenure  system;  they  had  always 
been  told,  not  surely  without  justice,  that  it  was  at  the 
bottom  of  all  their  miseries;  they  were  now  under  the 
firm  conviction  that  the  Government  could  have  saved 
them  if  it  would.  What  wonder,  then,  if  there  were  bread 
riots  and  agrarian  disturbances?  Who  can  now  wonder, 
that  being  so,  that  the  Government  introduced  exceptional 
measures  of  repression?  But  it  certainly  had  a  grim  and 
a  disheartening  effect  on  the  spirits  of  the  Irish  people 
when  it  seemed  as  if  the  Government  could  only  potter 
and  palter  with  famine,  but  could  be  earnest  and  energetic 
when  devising  coercion  bills. 

Whatever  might  be  said  of  the  Government,  no  one 
could  doubt  the  good-will  of  the  English  people.  In 
every  great  English  community,  from  the  metropolis 
downward,  subscription  lists  were  opened,  and  the  most 
liberal  contributions  poured  in.  In  Liverpool,  for  ex- 
ample, a  great  number  of  the  merchants  of  the  place  put 
down  a  thousand  pounds  each.  The  Quakers  of  England 
sent  over  a  delegation  of  their  number  to  the  specially 
famine-stricken  districts  of  Ireland  to  administer  relief. 
Many  other    sects    and    bodies    followed    the   example. 


324  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

National  Relief  Associations  were  specially  formed  in 
England.  Relief,  indeed,  began  to  be  poured  in  from  all 
countries.  The  United  States  employed  some  of  their 
war  vessels  to  send  gifts  of  grain  and  other  food  to  the 
starving  places.  In  one  Irish  seaport  the  joy-bells  of  the 
town  were  kept  ringing  all  day  in  honor  of  the  arrival  of 
one  of  these  grain-laden  vessels — a  mournfully  significant 
form  of  rejoicing,  surely.  One  of  the  national  writers 
said  at  the  time  that  the  misery  of  Ireland  touched  "even 
the  heart  of  the  Turk  at  the  far  Dardanelles,  and  he  sent 
her  in  pity  the  alms  of  a  beggar."  It  was  true  that  from 
Turkey,  as  from  some  other  countries,  had  come  some 
contribution  toward  the  relief  of  Irish  distress.  At  the 
same  time  there  were  some  very  foolish  performances 
gone  through  in  Dublin  under  the  sanction  and  patronage 
of  the  Lord-lieutenant — the  solemn  "  inauguration,"  as  it 
would  be  called  by  a  certain  class  of  writers  now,  of  a 
public  soup-kitchen,  devised  and  managed  by  the  fashion- 
able French  cook,  M.  Soyer,  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
the  Irish  people  what  remarkably  sustaining /<7/<7^^  might 
be  made  out  of  the  thinnest  and  cheapest  materials.  This 
exposition  would  have  been  well  enough  if  in  a  quiet  and 
practical  way,  but  performed  as  a  grand  national  ceremony 
of  regeneration,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Viceroy,  and 
with  accompaniment  of  brass-bands  and  pageantry,  it  had 
a  remarkable  foolish  and  even  offensive  aspect.  The  per- 
formance was  resented  bitterly  by  many  of  the  impatient 
young  spirits  of  the  national  party  in  Dublin. 

Meanwhile  the  misery  went  on  deepening  and  broaden- 
ing. It  was  far  too  great  to  be  effectually  encountered  by 
subscriptions,  however  generous;  and  the  Government, 
meaning  to  do  the  best  they  could,  were  practically  at 
their  wits'  end.  The  starving  peasants  streamed  into  the 
nearest  considerable  town,  hoping  for  relief  there,  and 
found  too  often  that  there  the  very  sources  of  charity 
were  dried  up.  Many,  very  many,  thus  disappointed, 
merely  lay  down  on  the  pavement  and  died  there.     Along 


Famine,  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue.  325 

the  country  roads  one  met  everywhere  groups  of  gaunt, 
dim-eyed  wretches,  clad  in  miserable  old  sacking,  and 
wandering  aimlessly  with  some  vague  idea  of  finding  food, 
as  the  boy  in  the  fable  hoped  to  find  the  gold  where  the 
rainbow  touched  the  earth.  Many  remained  in  their 
empty  hovels,  and  took  death  there  when  he  came.  In 
some  regions  the  country  seemed  unpeopled  for  miles. 
A  fervid  national  writer  declared  that  the  impression 
made  on  him  by  the  aspect  of  the  country  then  was  that 
of  "  one  silent,  vast  dissolution."  Allowing  for  rhetoric, 
there  was  not  much  exaggeration  in  the  words.  Certainly 
the  Ireland  of  tradition  was  dissolved  in  the  operation  of 
that  famine.  The  old  system  gave  way  utterly.  The 
landlordism  of  the  days  before  the  famine  never  revived 
in  its  former  strength  and  its  peculiar  ways.  For  the 
landlord  class  there  came  out  of  the  famine  the  Encum- 
bered Estates  Courts;  for  the  small  farmer  and  peasant 
class  there  floated  up  the  American  emigrant  ship. 

Acts  and  even  conspiracies  of  violence,  as  we  have  said, 
began  to  be  not  uncommon  throughout  the  country,  and  in 
the  cities.  One  peculiar  symptom  of  the  time  was  the 
glass-breaking  mania  that  set  in  throughout  the  towns  of 
the  south  and  west.  It  is,  perhaps,  not  quite  reasonable  to 
call  it  a  mania,  for  it  had  melancholy  method  in  it.  The 
workhouses  were  overcrowded,  and  the  authorities  could 
not  receive  there  or  feed  there  one-fourth  of  the  applicants 
who  besieged  them.  Suddenly  it  seemed  to  occur  to  the 
minds  of  many  of  famine's  victims  that  there  were  the  pris- 
ons for  which  one  might  qualify  himself,  and  to  which, 
after  qualification,  he  could  not  be  denied  admittance. 
The  idea  was  simple:  go  into  a  town,  smash  deliberately 
the  windows  of  a  shop,  and  some  days  of  a  jail  and  of  sub- 
stantial food  must  follow.  The  plan  became  a  favorite. 
Especially  was  it  adopted  by  young  girls  and  women. 
After  a  time  the  puzzled  magistrates  resolved  to  put  an 
end  to  this  device  by  refusing  to  inflict  the  punishment 
which  these  unfortunate  creatures  sought  as  a  refuge  and 


^26  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

a  comfort.  One  early  result  of  the  famine  and  the  general 
breakdown  of  property  is  too  significant  to  be  allowed  to 
pass  unnoticed.  Some  of  the  landlords  had  been  living 
for  a  long  time  on  a  baseless  system,  on  a  credit  which 
the  failure  of  the  crops  brought  to  a  crushing  test.  Not  a 
few  of  these  were  utterly  broken.  They  could  maintain 
their  houses  and  halls  no  longer,  and  often  were  only  too 
happy  to  let  them  to  the  poor-law  guardians  to  be  used  as 
extra  workhouses.  In  the  near  neighborhood  of  many  a 
distressed  country  town  the  great  house  of  the  local  mag- 
nate thus  became  a  receptacle  for  the  pauperism  which 
could  not  find  a  refuge  in  the  overcrowded  asylums  which 
the  poor-law  system  had  already  provided.  The  lion  and 
the  lizard,  says  the  Persian  poet,  keep  the  halls  where 
Jamshyd  gloried  and  drank  deep.  The  pauper  devoured 
his  scanty  dole  of  Indian  meal  porridge  in  the  hall  where 
his  landlord  had  gloried  and  drunk  deep. 

When  the  famine  was  over  and  its  results  came  to  be 
estimated,  it  was  found  that  Ireland  had  lost  about  two 
millions  of  her  population.  She  had  come  down  from 
eight  millions  to  six.  This  was  the  combined  effect  of 
starvation,  of  the  various  diseases  that  followed  in  its  path 
gleaning  where  it  had  failed  to  gather,  and  of  emigration. 
Long  after  all  the  direct  effects  of  the  failure  of  the  potato 
had  ceased,  the  population  still  continued  steadily  to  de- 
crease. The  Irish  peasant  had  in  fact  had  his  eyes  turned, 
as  Mr.  Bright  afterward  expressed  it,  toward  the  setting 
sun,  and  for  long  years  the  system  of  emigration  westward 
never  abated  in  its  volume.  A  new  Ireland  began  to  grow 
up  across  the  Atlantic.  In  every  great  city  of  the  United 
States  the  Irish  element  began  to  form  a  considerable  con- 
stituent of  the  population.  From  New  York  to  San  Fran- 
cisco, from  St.  Paul,  Minnesota,  to  New  Orleans,  the  Irish 
accent  is  heard  in  every  street,  and  the  Irish  voter  comes 
to  the  polling-booth  ready,  far  too  heedlessly,  to  vote  for 
any  politician  who  will  tell  him  that  America  loves  the 
green  flag  and  hates  the  Saxon. 


Famine,  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue.    327 

Terrible  as  the  immediate  effects  of  the  famine  were,  it 
is  impossible  for  any  friend  of  Ireland  to  say  that,  on  the 
whole,  it  did  not  bring  much  good  with  it.  It  first  applied 
the  scourge  which  was  to  drive  out  of  the  land  a  thoroughly 
vicious  and  rotten  system.  It  first  called  the  attention  of 
English  statesmen  irresistibly  to  the  fact  that  the  system 
was  bad  to  its  heart's  core,  and  that  nothing  good  could 
come  of  it.  It  roused  the  attention  of  the  humble  Irish- 
man, too  often  inclined  to  put  up  with  everything  in  the 
lazy  spirit  of  a  Neapolitan  or  a  fatalist,  to  the  fact  that 
there  was  for  him  too  a  world  elsewhere.  The  famine 
had,  indeed,  many  a  bloody  after-birth,  but  it  gave  to  the 
world  a  new  Ireland. 

The  Government,  as  it  may  be  supposed,  had  hard  work 
to  do  all  this  time.  They  had  the  best  intentions  toward 
Ireland,  and  were  always,  indeed,  announcing  that  they 
had  found  out  some  new  way  of  dealing  with  the  distress, 
and  modifying  or  withdrawing  old  plans.  They  adopted 
measures  from  time  to  time  to  expend  large  sums  in  some- 
thing like  systematic  employment  for  the  poor  in  Ireland ; 
they  modified  the  Irish  Poor-laws;  they  agreed  at  length 
to  suspend  temporarily  the  Corn-laws  and  the  Navigation 
Laws,  so  far  as  these  related  to  the  importation  of  grain. 
A  tremendous  commercial  panic,  causing  the  fall  of  great 
houses,  especially  in  the  corn  trade,  all  over  the  country, 
called  for  the  suspension  of  the  Bank  Charter  Act  of  1844, 
and  the  measures  of  the  ministers  were,  for  the  most  part, 
treated  considerately  and  loyally  by  Sir  Robert  Peel ;  but  a 
new  opposition  had  formed  itself  under  the  nominal  guid- 
ance of  Lord  George  Bentinck,  and  the  real  inspiration  of 
Mr.  Disraeli.  Lord  George  Bentinck  brought  in  a  bill  to 
make  a  grant  of  sixteen  millions  to  be  expended  as  an  ad- 
vance on  the  construction  and  completion  of  Irish  railways. 
This  proposal  was  naturally  very  welcome  to  many  in  Ire- 
land. It  had  a  lavish  and  showy  air  about  it ;  and  Lord 
George  Bentinck  talked  grandiosely  in  his  speech  about 
the  readiness  with  which  he,   the  Saxon,   would,   if  his 


32S  A  History  of  Our  Oivn  Times. 

measure  were  carried,  answer  with  his  head  for  the  loyalty 
of  the  Irish  people.  But  it  soon  began  to  appear  that  the 
scheme  was  not  so  much  a  question  of  the  Irish  people  as 
of  certain  moneyed  classes  who  might  be  helped  along  at 
the  expense  of  the  English  and  the  Irish  people.  Lord 
George  Bentinck  certainly  had  no  other  than  a  direct  and 
single-minded  purpose  to  do  good  to  Ireland;  but  his 
measure  would  have  been  a  failure  if  it  had  been  carried. 
It  was  fairly  open  in  some  respects  to  the  criticism  of  Mr. 
Roebuck,  that  it  proposed  to  relieve  Irish  landlordism  of  its 
responsibilities  at  the  expense  of  the  British  tax-payer. 
The  measure  was  rejected.  Lord  George  Bentinck  was 
able  to  worry  the  ministry  somewhat  effectively  when  they 
introduced  a  measure  to  reduce  gradually  the  differential 
duties  on  sugar  for  a  few  years,  and  then  replace  these 
duties  by  a  fixed  and  uniform  rate.  This  was,  in  short, 
a  proposal  to  apply  the  principle  of  Free-trade,  instead 
of  that  of  Protection,  to  sugar.  The  protective  principle 
had,  in  this  case,  however,  a  certain  fascination  about 
it,  even  for  independent  minds;  for  an  exceptional  protec- 
tion had  been  retained  by  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  order  to  en- 
able the  planters  in  our  colonies  to  compensate  themselves 
for  the  loss  they  might  suffer  in  the  transition  from  slavery 
to  free  labor.  Lord  George  Bentinck,  therefore,  proposed 
an  amendment  to  the  resolutions  of  the  Government,  de- 
claring it  unjust  and  impolitic  to  reduce  the  duty  on 
foreign  slave-grown  sugar,  as  tending  to  check  the  ad- 
vance of  production  by  British  free  labor,  and  to  give  a 
great  additional  stimulus  to  slave  labor.  Many  sincere 
and  independent  opponents  of  slavery.  Lord  Brougham  in 
the  House  of  Lords  among  them,  were  caught  by  this  view 
of  the  question.  Lord  George  and  his  brilliant  lieutenant 
at  one  time  appeared  as  if  they  were  likely  to  carry  their 
point  in  the  Commons.  But  it  was  announced  that  if  the 
resolutions  of  the  Government  were  defeated  ministers 
would  resign,  and  there  was  no  one  to  take  their  place. 
Peel  could  not  return  to  power ;  and  the  time  was  far  dis- 


Famine,  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue.   ^529 

tant  yet  when  Mr.  Disraeli  could  form  a  ministry.  The 
opposition  crumbled  away,  therefore,  and  the  Government 
measures  were  carried.  Lord  George  Bentinck  made  him- 
self for  a  while  the  champion  of  the  West  India  sugar-pro- 
ducing interest.  He  was  a  man  who  threw  himself  with 
enormous  energy  into  any  work  he  undertook;  and  he  had 
got  up  the  case  of  the  West  India  planters  with  all  the  en- 
thusiasm that  inspired  him  in  his  more  congenial  pursuits 
as  one  of  the  principal  men  on  the  turf.  The  alliance  be- 
tween him  and  Mr.  Disraeli  is  curious.  The  two  men, 
one  would  think,  could  have  had  absolutely  nothing  in 
common.  Mr.  Disraeli  knew  nothing  about  horses  and 
racing.  Lord  George  Bentinck  could  not  possibly  have 
imderstood,  not  to  say  sympathized  with,  many  of  the 
leading  ideas  of  his  lieutenant.  Yet  Bentinck  had  evi- 
dently formed  a  just  estimate  of  Disraeli's  political  genius; 
and  Disraeli  saw  that  in  Bentinck  were  many  of  the  special 
qualities  which  go  to  make  a  powerful  party  leader  in 
England.  Time  has  amply  justified,  and  more  than  justi- 
fied, Bentinck's  convictions  as  to  Disraeli;  Bentinck's 
premature  death  leaves  Disraeli's  estimate  of  him  an  un- 
tested speculation. 

There  were  troubles  abroad  as  well  as  at  home  for  the 
Government.  Almost  immediately  on  their  coming  into 
office,  the  project  of  the  Spanish  marriages,  concocted  be- 
tween King  Louis  Philippe  and  his  minister,  M.  Guizot, 
disturbed  for  a  time,  and  very  seriously,  the  good  under- 
standing between  England  and  France.  It  might,  so  far 
as  this  country  was  concerned,  have  had  much  graver  con- 
sequences but  for  the  fact  that  it  bore  its  bitter  fruit  so 
soon  for  the  dynasty  of  Louis  Philippe,  and  helped  to  put 
a  new  ruler  on  the  throne  of  France.  It  is  only  as  it 
affected  the  friendly  feeling  between  this  country  and 
France  that  the  question  of  the  vSpanish  marriages  has  a 
place  in  such  a  work  as  this;  but  at  one  time  it  seemed 
likely  enough  to  bring  about  consequences  which  would 
link  it  closely  and  directly  with  the  history  of  England. 


330  A  History  of  Our  Oivn  Times. 

The  ambition  of  the  French  minister  and  his  master  was 
to  bring  the  throne  of  Spain  in  some  way  under  the  direct 
influence  of  France.  Such  a  scheme  had  again  and  again 
been  at  the  heart  of  French  rulers  and  statesmen,  and  it 
had  always  failed.  At  least  it  had  always  brought  with  it 
jealousy,  hostility,  and  war.  Louis  Philippe  and  his  min- 
ister were  untaught  by  the  lessons  of  the  past.  The  young 
Queen  Isabella  of  Spain  was  unmarried,  and  of  course  a 
high  degree  of  public  anxiety  existed  in  Europe  as  to  her 
choice  of  a  husband.  No  delusion  can  be  more  profound 
or  more  often  exposed  than  that  which  inspires  ambitious 
princes  and  enterprising  statesmen  to  imagine  that  they 
can  control  nations  by  the  influence  of  dynastic  alliances. 
In  every  European  war  we  see  princes  closely  connected 
by  marriage  in  arms  against  each  other.  The  great  politi- 
cal forces  which  bring  nations  into  the  field  of  battle  are 
not  to  be  charmed  into  submission  by  the  rubbing  of  a 
princess'  wedding-ring.  But  a  certain  class  of  statesman, 
a  man  of  the  order  who  in  ordinary  life  would  be  called 
too  clever  by  half,  is  always  intriguing  about  royal  mar- 
riages, as  if  thus  alone  he  could  hold  in  his  hands  the  des- 
tinies of  nations. 

In  an  evil  hour  for  themselves  and  their  fame,  Louis 
Philippe  and  his  minister  believed  that  they  could  obtain 
a  virtual  ownership  of  Spain  by  an  ingenious  marriage 
scheme.  There  was  at  one  time  a  project,  talked  of  rather 
than  actually  entertained,  of  marrying  the  young  Queen  of 
Spain  and  her  sister  to  the  Due  d'Aumale  and  the  Due  de 
Montpensier,  both  sons  of  Louis  Philippe.  But  this  would 
have  been  too  daring  a  venture  on  the  part  of  the  King  of 
the  French.  Apart  from  any  objections  to  be  entertained 
by  other  states,  it  was  certain  that  England  could  not 
"view  with  indifference,"  as  the  diplomatic  phrase  goes, 
the  prospect  of  a  son  of  the  French  King  occupying  the 
throne  of  Spain.  It  may  be  said  that  after  all  it  was  of 
little  concern  to  England  who  married  the  Queen  of  Spain. 
Spain  was  nothing  to  us.     It  would  not  follow  that  Spain 


Famine,  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue.  }}\ 

must  be  the  tool  of  France  because  the  Spanish  Queen  mar- 
ried a  son  of  the  French  King,  any  more  than  it  was  cer- 
tain in  a  former  day  that  Austria  must  link  herself  with 
the  fortunes  of  the  great  Napoleon  because  he  had  married 
an  Austrian  princess.  Probably  it  would  have  been  well 
if  England  had  concerned  herself  in  no  wise  with  the  do- 
mestic affairs  of  Spain,  and  had  allowed  Louis  Philippe  to 
spin  what  ignoble  plots  he  pleased,  if  the  Spanish  people 
themselves  had  not  wit  enough  to  see  through  and  power 
enough  to  counteract  them.  At  a  later  period  France 
brought  on  herself  a  terrible  war  and  a  crushing  defeat 
because  her  Emperor  chose  to  believe,  or  allowed  himself 
to  be  persuaded  into  believing,  that  the  security  of  France 
would  be  threatened  if  a  Prussian  prince  were  called  to 
the  throne  of  Spain.  The  Prussian  prince  did  not  ascend 
that  throne;  but  the  war  between  France  and  Prussia  went 
on ;  France  was  defeated ;  and  after  a  little  the  Spanish 
people  themselves  got  rid  of  the  prince  whom  they  had 
consented  to  accept  in  place  of  the  obnoxious  Prussian. 
If  the  French  Emperor  had  not  interfered,  it  is  only  too 
probable  that  the  Prussian  prince  would  have  gone  to 
Madrid,  reigned  there  for  a  few  unstable  and  tremulous 
months,  and  then  have  been  quietly  sent  back  to  his  own 
country.  But  at  the  time  of  Louis  Philippe's  intrigues 
about  the  Spanish  marriages,  the  statesmen  of  England 
were  by  no  means  disposed  to  take  a  cool  and  philosophic 
view  of  things.  The  idea  of  non-intervention  had  scarcely 
come  up  then,  and  the  English  minister  who  was  chiefly 
concerned  in  foreign  affairs  was  about  the  last  man  in  the 
world  to  admit  that  anything  could  go  on  in  Europe  or 
elsewhere  in  which  England  was  not  entitled  to  express 
an  opinion,  and  to  make  her  influence  felt.  The  mar- 
riage, therefore,  of  the  young  Queen  of  Spain  had  been 
long  a  subject  of  anxious  consideration  in  the  councils  of 
the  English  Government.  Louis  Philippe  knew  very  well 
that  he  could  not  venture  to  marry  one  of  his  sons  to  the 
young  Isabella.     But  he  and  his  minister  devised  a  scheme 


^■^2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

for  securing  to  themselves  and  their  policy  the  same  effect 
in  another  way.  They  contrived  that  the  Queen  and  her 
sister  should  be  married  at  the  same  time — the  Queen  to 
her  cousin,  Don  Francisco  d'Assis,  Duke  of  Cadiz;  and 
her  sister  to  the  Duke  de  Montpensier,  Louis  Philippe's 
son.  There  was  reason  to  expect  that  the  Queen,  if  mar- 
ried to  Don  Francisco,  would  have  no  children,  and  that 
the  wife  of  Louis  Philippe's  son,  or  some  of  her  children, 
would  come  to  the  throne  of  Spain. 

On  the  moral  guilt  of  a  plot  like  this  it  would  be  super- 
fluous to  dwell.     Nothing  in  the  history  of  the  perversions 
of  human  conscience  and  judgment  can  be  more  extraor- 
dinary than  the  fact  that  a  man  like  M.  Guizot  should  have 
been  its  inspiring  influence.     It  came  with  a  double  shock 
upon  the  Queen  of  England  and  her  ministers,  because 
they  had  every  reason  to  think  that  Louis  Philippe  had 
bound  himself  by  a  solemn  promise  to  discourage  any  such 
policy.     When  the  Queen  paid  her  visit  to  Louis  Philippe 
at  Eu,  the  King  made  the  most  distinct  and  the  most 
spontaneous  promise  on  the  subject  both  to  her  Majesty 
and  to  Lord  Aberdeen.     The  Queen's  own  journal  says: 
"  The  King  told  Lord  Aberdeen  as  well  as  me  he  never 
would  hear  of  Montpensier's  marriage  with  the  Infanta 
of   Spain— which   they   are  in   a  great    fright    about  in 
England— until    it   was   no    longer    a  political    question, 
which  would  be  when  the  Queen  is  married  and  has  chil- 
dren."    The  King's  own  defence  of  himself  afterward,  in 
a  letter  intended  to  be  a  reply  to  one  written  to  his  daughter, 
the  Queen  of  the  Belgians,  by  Queen  Victoria,  admits  the 
fact.     "  I  shall  tell  you  precisely,"  he  says,  "  in  what  con- 
sists the  deviation  on  my  side.     Simply  in  my  having  ar- 
ranged for  the  marriage  of  the  Due  de  Montpensier,  not 
before  the  marriage  of  the  Queen  of  Spain,  for  she  is  to  be 
married  to  the  Due  de  Cadiz  at  the  very  moment  when  my 
son  is  married  to  the  Infanta,  but  before  the  Queen  has  a 
child.     That  is  the  whole  deviation,  nothing  more,  nothing 
less."     This  was  surely  deviation  enough  from  the  King's 


Famine,  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue.   }}} 

promise  to  justify  any  charge  of  bad  faith  that  could  be 
made.  The  whole  question  was  one  of  succession.  The 
objection  of  England  and  other  Powers  was,  from  first  to 
last,  an  objection  to  any  arrangement  which  might  leave 
the  succession  to  one  of  Louis  Philippe's  children  or  grand- 
children. For  this  reason  the  King  had  given  his  word  to 
Queen  Victoria  that  he  would  not  hear  of  his  son's  mar- 
riage with  Isabella's  sister  until  the  difficulty  about  the  suc- 
cession had  been  removed  by  Isabella  herself  being  mar- 
ried and  having  a  child.  Such  an  agreement  was  abso- 
lutely broken  when  the  King  arranged  for  the  marriage 
of  his  son  to  the  sister  of  Queen  Isabella  at  the  same  time 
as  Isabella's  own  marriage,  and  when,  therefore,  it  was 
not  certain  that  the  young  Queen  would  have  any  children. 
The  political  question — the  question  of  succession — re- 
mained then  open  as  before.  All  the  objections  that  Eng- 
land and  other  Powers  had  to  the  marriage  of  the  Due  de 
Montpensier  stood  out  as  strong  as  ever.  It  was  a  ques- 
tion of  the  birth  of  a  child,  and  no  child  was  born.  The 
breach  of  faith  was  made  infinitely  more  grave  by  the  fact 
that  in  the  public  opinion  of  Europe  Louis  Philippe  was 
set  down  as  having  brought  about  the  marriage  of  the 
Queen  of  Spain  with  her  cousin  Don  Francisco  in  the  hope 
and  belief  that  the  union  would  be  barren  of  issue,  and 
that  the  wife  of  his  son  would  stand  on  the  next  step  of 
the  throne. 

The  excuse  which  Louis  Philippe  put  forward  to  palliate 
what  he  called  his  "  deviation"  from  the  promise  to  the 
Queen  was  not  of  a  nature  calculated  to  allay  the  ill  feel- 
ing which  his  policy  had  aroused  in  England.  He  pleaded 
in  substance  that  he  had  reason  to  believe  in  an  intended 
piece  of  treachery  on  the  part  of  the  English  Government, 
the  consequences  of  which,  if  it  were  successful,  would 
have  been  injurious  to  his  policy,  and  the  discovery  of 
which,  therefore,  released  him  from  his  promise.  He  had 
found  out,  as  he  declared,  that  there  was  an  intention  on 
the  part  of  England  to  put  forward,  as  a  candidate  for  the 


}34  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

hand  of   Queen    Isabella,   Prince  Leopold   of   Coburg,   a 
cousin  of  Prince  Albert.     There  was  so  little  justification 
for  any  such  suspicion  that  it  hardly  seemed  possible  a 
man  of  Louis  Philippe's  shrewdness  can  really  have  en- 
tertained it.     The  English  Government  had  always  stead- 
fastly declined  to  give  any  support  whatever  to  the  candi- 
dature of  this  young  prince.     Lord  Aberdeen,  who  was 
then  Foreign  Secretary,  had  always  taken  his  stand  on  the 
broad  principle  that  the  marriage  of  the  Queen  of  Spain 
was  the  business  of  Isabella  herself  and  of  the  Spanish 
people ;  and  that  so  long  as  that  Queen  and  that  people 
were  satisfied,  and  the  interests  of  England  were  in  no  wise 
involved,  the  Government  of  Queen  Victoria  would  inter- 
fere in  no  manner.     The  candidature  of  Prince  Leopold 
had  been,  in  the  first  instance,  a  project  of  the  Dowager 
Queen  of  Spain,  Christina,  a  woman  of  intriguing  char- 
acter, on  whose  political  probity  no  great  reliance  could 
be  placed.     The  English  Government  had  in  the  most  de- 
cided and  practical  manner  proved  that  they  took  no  share 
in  the  plans  of  Queen  Christina,  and  had  no  sympathy 
with  them.     But  while  the  whole  negotiations  were  going 
on,  the  defeat  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Ministry  brought  Lord 
Palmerston  into  the  Foreign  Office  in  place  of  Lord  Aber- 
deen.    The  very  name  of  Palmerston  produced  on  Louis 
Philippe  and  his  ministers  the  effect  vulgarly  said  to  be 
wrought  on  a  bull  by  the  display  of  a  red  rag.      Louis 
Philippe  treasured  in  bitter  memory  the  unexpected  suc- 
cess which   Palmerston  had  won  from  him  in  regard  to 
Turkey  and  Egypt.     At  that  time,  and  especially  in  the 
court  of  Louis  Philippe,  foreign  politics  were  looked  upon 
as  the  field  in  which  the  ministers  of  great  Powers  con- 
tended against    each  other  with  brag   and  trickery  and 
subtle  arts  of  all  kinds;  the  plain  principles  of  integrity 
and  truthful  dealing  did  not  seem  to  be  regarded  as  prop- 
erly belonging  to  the  rules  of  the  game.     Louis  Philippe 
probably  believed  in  good  faith  that  the  return  of  Lord 
Palmerston  to  the  Foreign  Office  must  mean  the  renewed 


Famine,  Commercial  Trouble,  and  Foreign  Intrigue.  535 

activity  of  treacherous  plans  against  himself.  This,  at 
least,  is  the  only  assumption  on  which  we  can  explain  the 
King's  conduct,  if  we  do  not  wish  to  believe  that  he  put 
forward  excuses  and  pretexts  which  were  wilful  in  their 
falsehood.  Louis  Philippe  seized  on  some  words  in  a 
despatch  of  Lord  Palmerston's,  in  which  the  candidature 
of  Prince  Leopold  was  simply  mentioned  as  a  matter  of 
fact;  declared  that  these  words  showed  that  the  English 
Government  had  at  last  openly  adopted  that  candidature, 
professed  himself  relieved  from  all  previous  engagements, 
and  at  once  hurried  on  the  marriage  between  Queen  Isa- 
bella and  her  cousin,  and  that  of  his  own  son  with  Isa- 
bella's sister.  On  October  loth,  1846,  the  double  mar- 
riage took  place  at  Madrid ;  and  on  February  5th  following, 
M.  Guizot  told  the  French  Chambers  that  the  Spanish 
marriages  constituted  the  first  great  thing  France  had  ac- 
complished completely  single-handed  in  Europe  since 
1830. 

Every  one  knows  what  a  failure  this  scheme  proved,  so 
far  as  the  objects  of  Louis  Philippe  and  his  minister  were 
concerned.  Queen  Isabella  had  children  ;  Montpensier's 
wife  did  not  come  to  the  throne ;  and  the  dynasty  of  Louis 
Philippe  fell  before  long,  its  fall  undoubtedly  hastened  by 
the  position  of  utter  isolation  and  distrust  in  which  it  was 
placed  by  the  scheme  of  the  Spanish  marriages  and  the 
feelings  which  it  provoked  in  Europe.  The  fact  with 
which  we  have  to  deal,  however,  is  that  the  friendship  be- 
tween England  and  France,  from  which  so  many  happy 
results  seemed  likely  to  come  to  Europe  and  the  cause  of 
free  government,  was  necessarily  interrupted.  It  would 
have  been  impossible  to  trust  any  longer  to  Louis  Philippe. 
The  Queen  herself  entered  into  a  correspondence  with  his 
daughter,  the  Queen  of  the  Belgians,  in  which  she  ex- 
pressed in  the  clearest  and  most  emphatic  manner  her 
opinion  of  the  treachery  with  which  England  had  been 
encountered,  and  suggested  plainly  enough  her  sense  of 
the  moral  wrong  involved  in  such  ignoble  policy.     The 


^^6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Time$. 

whole  transaction  is  but  another  and  a  most  striking  con- 
demnation of  that  odious  creed,  for  a  long  time  tolerated 
in  state-craft,  that  there  is  one  moral  code  for  private  life 
and  another  for  the  world  of  politics.  A  man  who  in 
private  affairs  should  act  as  Louis  Philippe  and  M.  Guizot 
acted  would  be  justly  considered  infamous.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  suppose  that  M.  Guizot,  at  least,  could  have  so 
acted  in  private  life.  M.  Guizot  was  a  Protestant  of  a 
peculiarly  austere  type,  who  professed  to  make  religious 
duty  his  guide  in  all  things,  and  who  doubtless  did  make 
it  so  in  all  his  dealings  as  a  private  citizen.  But  it  is  only 
too  evident  that  he  believed  the  policy  of  states  to  allow 
of  other  principles  than  those  of  Christian  morality.  He 
allowed  himself  to  be  governed  by  the  odious  delusion  that 
the  interests  of  a  state  can  be  advanced  and  ought  to  be 
pursued  by  means  which  an  ordinary  man  of  decent  char- 
acter would  scorn  to  employ  for  any  object  in  private  life. 
A  man  of  any  high  principle  would  not  employ  such  arts 
in  private  life  to  save  all  his  earthly  possessions,  and  his 
life  and  the  lives  of  his  wife  and  children.  Any  one  who 
will  take  the  trouble  to  think  over  the  whole  of  this  plot — 
for  it  can  be  called  by  no  other  name — over  the  ignoble 
object  which  it  had  in  view,  the  base  means  by  which  it 
was  carried  out,  the  ruthless  disregard  for  the  inclinations, 
the  affections,  the  happiness,  and  the  morality  of  its  prin- 
cipal victims;  and  will  then  think  of  it  as  carried  on  in 
private  life  in  order  to  come  at  the  reversion  of  some  }'oung 
and  helpless  girl's  inheritance,  will  perhaps  find  it  hard 
to  understand  how  the  shame  can  be  any  the  less  because 
the  principal  plotter  was  a  king,  and  the  victims  were  a 
queen  and  a  nation. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

CHARTISM    AND    YOUNG    IRELAND. 

The  year  1848  was  an  era  in  the  modern  history  of 
Europe.  It  was  the  year  of  unfulfilled  revolutions.  The 
fall  of  the  dynasty  of  Louis  Philippe  may  be  said  to  have 
set  the  revolutionary  tide  flowing-.  The  event  in  France 
had  long  been  anticipated  by  keen-eyed  observers.  There 
are  many  predictions,  delivered  and  recorded  before  the 
revolution  was  yet  near,  which  show  that  it  ought  not  to 
have  taken  the  world  by  surprise.  The  reign  of  the 
Bourgeois  King  was  unsuited  in  its  good  and  in  its  bad 
qualities  alike  to  the  genius  and  the  temper  of  the  French 
people.  The  people  of  France  have  defects  enough  which 
friends  and  enemies  are  ready  to  point  out  to  them ;  but  it 
can  hardly  be  denied  that  they  like  at  least  the  appearance 
of  a  certain  splendor  and  magnanimity  in  their  systems  of 
government.  This  is,  indeed,  one  of  their  weaknesses. 
It  lays  them  open  to  the  allurements  of  any  brilliant  adven- 
turer, like  the  First  Napoleon  or  the  Third,  who  can  promise 
them  national  greatness  and  glory  at  the  expense  perhaps 
of  domestic  liberty.  But  it  makes  them  peculiarly  in- 
tolerant of  anything  mean  and  sordid  in  a  system  or  a 
ruler.  There  are  peoples,  no  doubt,  who  could  be  per- 
suaded, and  wisely  persuaded,  to  put  up  with  a  good  deal 
of  the  ignoble  and  the  shabby  in  their  foreign  policy  for 
the  sake  of  domestic  comfort  and  tranquillity.  But  the 
French  people  are  always  impatient  of  anything  like  mean- 
ness in  their  rulers,  and  the  government  of  Louis  Philippe 
was  especially  mean.  Its  foreign  policy  was  treacherous ; 
its  diplomatists  were  commissioned  to  act  as  tricksters; 
the  word  of  a  French  minister  at  a  foreign  court  began  to 
Vol.  I. — 22 


^)S  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

be  regarded  as  on  a  level  of  credibility  with  a  dicer's  oath. 
The  home  policy  of  the  King  was  narrow-minded  and  re- 
pressive enough;  but  a  man  who  played  upon  the  national 
weakness  more  wisely  might  have  persuaded  his  people  to 
be  content  with  defects  at  home  for  the  sake  of  prestige 
abroad.  From  the  hour  when  it  became  apparent  in 
France  that  the  nation  was  not  respected  abroad,  the  fall  of 
the  dynasty  was  only  a  matter  of  time  and  change.  The 
terrible  story  of  the  De  Praslin  family  helped  to  bring 
about  the  catastrophe;  the  alternate  weakness  and  ob- 
stinacy of  the  Government  forced  it  on;  and  the  King's 
own  lack  of  decision  made  it  impossible  that  when  the 
trial  had  come  it  could  end  in  any  way  but  one. 

Louis  Philippe  fled  to  England,  and  his  flight  was  the 
signal  for  long  pent-up  fires  to  break  out  all  over  Europe. 
Revolution  soon  was  aflame  over  nearly  all  the  courts  and 
capitals  of  the  Continent.  Revolution  is  like  an  epidemic ; 
it  finds  out  the  weak  places  in  systems.  The  two  Euro- 
pean countries  which,  being  tried  by  it,  stood  it  best,  were 
England  and  Belgium.  In  the  latter  country  the  King 
made  frank  appeal  to  his  people,  and  told  them  that  if 
they  wished  to  be  rid  of  him  he  was  quite  willing  to  go. 
Language  of  this  kind  is  new  in  the  mouths  of  sovereigns; 
and  the  Belgians  are  a  people  well  able  to  appreciate  it. 
They  declared  for  their  King,  and  the  shock  of  the  revolu- 
tion passed  harmlessly  away.  In  England  and  Ireland  the 
effect  of  the  events  in  France  was  instantly  made  manifest. 
The  Chartist  agitation  at  once  came  to  a  head.  Some  of 
the  Chartist  leaders  called  out  for  the  dismissal  of  the  min- 
istry, the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament,  the  Charter  and 
"  no  surrender. "  A  national  convention  of  Chartists  began 
its  sittings  in  London  to  arrange  for  a  monster  demonstra- 
tion on  April  loth.  Some  of  the  speakers  openly  declared 
that  the  people  were  now  quite  ready  to  fight  for  their 
Charter.  Others, more  cautious,  advised  that  no  step  should 
be  taken  against  the  law  until  at  least  it  was  quite  certain 
that  the  people  were  stronger  than  the  upholders  of  the 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  339 

existing  laws.  Nearly  all  the  leading  Chartists  spoke  of 
the  revolution  in  France  as  an  example  offered  in  good 
time  to  the  English  people;  and  it  is  somewhat  curious  to 
observe  how  it  was  assumed  in  the  most  evident  good  faith 
that  what  we  may  call  the  wage-receiving  portion  of  the 
population  of  these  islands  constitutes  exclusively  the 
English  people.  What  the  educated,  the  wealthy,  the 
owners  of  land,  the  proprietors  of  factories,  the  ministers 
of  the  different  denominations,  the  authors  of  books,  the 
painters  of  pictures,  the  bench,  the  bar,  the  army,  the 
navy,  the  medical  profession — what  all  these  or  any  of 
them  might  think  with  regard  to  any  proposed  constitu- 
tional changes  was  accounted  a  matter  in  no  wise  affecting 
the  resolve  of  the  English  "people."  The  moderate  men 
among  the  Chartists  themselves  were  soon  unable  to  secure 
a  hearing;  and  the  word  of  order  went  round  among  the 
body  that  "  the  English  people"  must  have  the  Charter  or 
a  Republic.  What  had  been  done  in  France  enthusiasts 
fancied  might  well  be  done  in  England. 

It  was  determined  to  present  a  monster  petition  to  the 
House  of  Commons  demanding  the  Charter,  and,  in  fact, 
offering  a  last  chance  to  Parliament  to  yield  quietly  to  the 
demand.  The  petition  was  to  be  presented  by  a  deputa- 
tion who  were  to  be  conducted  by  a  vast  procession  up  to 
the  doors  of  the  House.  The  procession  was  to  be  formed 
on  Kennington  Common,  the  space  then  unenclosed  which 
is  now  Kennington  Park,  on  the  south  side  of  London, 
There  the  Chartists  were  to  be  addressed  by  their  still 
trusted  leader,  Feargus  O'Connor,  and  they  were  to  march 
in.  military  order  to  present  their  petition.  The  object 
undoubtedly  was  to  make  such  a  parade  of  physical  force 
as  should  overawe  the  Legislature  and  the  Government, 
and  demonstrate  the  impossibility  of  refusing  a  demand 
backed  by  such  a  reserve  of  power.  The  idea  was  taken 
from  O'Connell's  policy  in  the  monster  meetings;  but 
there  were  many  of  the  Chartists  who  hoped  for  something 
more  than  a  mere  demonstration  of  physical  force,  and 


340  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

who  would  have  been  heartily  glad  if  some  untimely  or 
imreasonable  interference  on  the  part  of  the  authorities 
had  led  to  a  collision.  A  strong  faith  still  survived  at  that 
day  in  what  was  grandiosely  called  the  might  of  earnest 
numbers.  Ardent  young  Chartists  who  belonged  to  the 
time  of  life  when  anything  seems  possible  to  the  brave 
and  faithful,  and  when  facts  and  examples  count  for  nothing 
unless  they  favor  one's  own  views,  fully  believed  that  it 
needed  but  the  firing  of  the  first  shot,  "  the  sparkle  of  the 
first  sword  drawn,"  to  give  success  to  the  arms,  though 
but  the  bare  arms,  of  the  people,  and  to  inaugurate  the 
reign  of  liberty.  Therefore,  however  differently  and  harm- 
lessly events  may  have  turned  out,  we  may  be  certain  that 
there  went  to  the  rendezvous  at  Kennington  Common,  on 
that  April  loth,  many  hundreds  of  ignorant  and  excitable 
young  men  who  desired  nothing  so  much  as  a  collision 
with  the  police  and  the  military,  and  the  reign  of  liberty 
to  follow.  The  proposed  procession  was  declared  illegal, 
and  all  peaceful  and  loyal  subjects  were  warned  not  to  take 
any  part  in  it.  But  this  was  exactly  what  the  more  ardent 
among  the  Chartists  expected  and  desired  to  see.  They 
were  rejoiced  that  the  Government  had  proclaimed  the  pro- 
cession unlawful.  Was  not  that  the  proper  occasion  for 
resolute  patriots  to  show  that  they  represented  a  cause  above 
despotic  law?  Was  not  that  the  very  opportunity  offered 
to  them  to  prove  that  the  people  were  more  mighty  than 
their  rulers,  and  that  the  rulers  must  obey  or  abdicate? 
Was  not  the  whole  sequence  of  proceedings  thus  far  ex- 
actly after  the  pattern  of  the  French  Revolution?  The 
people  resolve  that  they  will  have  a  certain  demonstration 
in  a  certain  way;  the  oligarchical  Government  declare 
that  they  shall  not  do  so;  the  people  persevere,  and  of 
course  the  next  thing  must  be  that  the  Government  falls, 
exactly  as  in  Paris.  When  poor  Dick  Swiveller,  in  Dick- 
ens' story,  is  recovering  from  his  fever,  he  looks  forth  of 
his  miserable  bed  and  makes  up  his  mind  that  he  is  under 
the  influence  of  some  such  magic  spell  as  he  has  become 


Chartism  and  Younn  Ireland. 


^> 


341 


familiar  with  in  the  "Arabian  Nights."  His  poverty- 
stricken  little  nurse  claps  her  thin  hands  with  joy  to  see 
him  alive;  and  Dick  makes  up  his  mind  that  the  clapping 
of  the  hands  is  the  sign  understood  of  all  who  read  Eastern 
romance,  and  that  next  must  appear  at  the  princess'  sum- 
mons the  row  of  slaves  with  jars  of  jewels  on  their  heads. 
Poor  Dick,  reasoning  from  his  experiences  in  the  "  Arabian 
Nights,"  was  not  one  whit  more  astray  than  enthusiastic 
Chartists  reasoning  for  the  sequence  of  English  politics 
from  the  evidence  of  what  had  happened  in  France.  The 
slaves  with  the  jars  of  jewels  on  their  heads  were  just  as 
likely  to  follow  the  clap  of  the  poor  girl's  hands  as  the 
events  that  had  followed  a  popular  demonstration  in  Paris 
to  follow  a  popular  demonstration  in  London.  To  begin 
with,  the  Chartists  did  not  represent  any  such  power  in 
London  as  the  Liberal  deputies  of  the  French  Chamber  did 
in  Paris.  In  the  next  place,  London  does  not  govern 
England,  and  in  our  time,  at  least,  never  did.  In  the 
tliird  place,  the  English  Government  knew  perfectly  well 
that  they  were  strong  in  the  general  support  of  the  nation, 
and  were  not  likely  to  yield  for  a  single  moment  to  the 
hesitation  which  sealed  the  fate  of  the  French  monarchy. 

The  Chartists  fell  to  disputing  among  themselves  very 
much  as  O'Connell's  Repealers  had  done.  Some  were 
for  disobeying  the  orders  of  the  authorities  and  having  the 
procession,  and  provoking  rather  than  avoiding  a  colli- 
sion. At  a  meeting  of  the  Chartist  Convention,  held  the 
right  before  the  demonstration,  "the  eve  of  Liberty,"  as 
some  of  the  orators  eloquently  termed  it,  a  considerable 
number  were  for  going  armed  to  Kennington  Common. 
Feargus  O'Connor  had,  however,  sense  enough  still  left 
to  throw  the  weight  of  his  influence  against  such  an  insane 
proceeding,  and  to  insist  that  the  demonstration  must 
show  itself  to  be,  as  it  was  from  the  first  proclaimed  to  be, 
a  strictly  pacific  proceeding.  This  was  the  parting  of  the 
ways  in  the  Chartist  as  it  had  been  in  the  Repeal  agitation. 
The  more  ardent  spirits  at  once  withdrew  from  the  organ- 


342  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ization.  Those  who  might  even  at  the  very  last  have 
done  mischief  if  they  had  remained  part  of  the  movement, 
withdrew  from  it ;  and  Chartism  was  left  to  be  represented 
by  a  open-air  meeting  and  a  petition  to  Parliament,  like 
all  the  other  demonstrations  that  the  metropolis  had  seen 
to  pass,  hardly  heeded,  across  the  field  of  politics.  But  the 
public  at  large  was  not  aware  that  the  fangs  of  Chartism 
had  been  drawn  before  it  was  let  loose  to  play  on  Kenning- 
ton  Common  that  memorable  loth  of  April.  London 
awoke  in  great  alarm  that  day.  The  Chartists  in  their 
most  sanguine  moments  never  ascribed  to  themselves  half 
the  strength  that  honest  alarmists  of  the  bourgeois  class 
were  ready  that  morning  to  ascribe  to  them.  The  wildest 
rumors  were  spread  abroad  in  many  parts  of  the  metrop- 
olis. Long  before  the  Chartists  had  got  together  on  Ken- 
nington  Common  at  all,  various  remote  quarters  of  London 
were  filled  with  horrifying  reports  of  encounters  between 
the  insurgents  and  the  police  or  the  military,  in  which  the 
Chartists  invariably  had  the  better,  and  as  a  result  of 
which  they  were  marching  in  full  force  to  the  particular 
district  where  the  momentary  panic  prevailed.  London 
is  worse  off  than  most  cities  in  such  a  time  of  alarm.  It 
is  too  large  for  true  accounts  of  things  rapidly  to  diffuse 
themselves.  In  April,  1848,  the  street  telegraph  was  not 
in  use  for  carrying  news  through  cities,  and  the  rapidly 
succeeding  editions  of  the  cheap  papers  were  as  yet  un- 
known. In  various  quarters  of  London,  therefore,  the 
citizen  was  left  through  the  greater  part  of  the  day  to  all 
the  agonies  of  doubt  and  uncertainty. 

There  was  no  lack,  however,  of  public  precautions 
against  an  outbreak  of  armed  Chartism.  The  Duke  of 
Wellington  took  charge  of  all  the  arrangements  for  guard- 
ing the  public  buildings  and  defending  the  metropolis 
generally.  He  acted  with  extreme  caution,  and  told  sev- 
eral influential  persons  that  the  troops  were  in  readiness 
everywhere,  but  that  they  would  not  be  seen  unless  an 
occasion  actually  rose  for  calling  on  their  services.     The 


Chariism  and  Young  Ireland,  343 

coolness  and  presence  of  mind  of  the  stern  old  soldier  are 
well  illustrated  in  the  fact  that  to  several  persons  of  in- 
fluence and  authority  who  came  to  him  with  suggestions 
for  the  defence  of  this  place  or  that,  his  almost  invariable 
answer  was  "done  already,"  or  "done  two  hours  ago,"  or 
something  of  the  kind.  A  vast  number  of  Londoners 
enrolled  themselves  as  special  constables  for  the  main- 
tenance of  law  and  order.  Nearly  two  hundred  thousand 
persons,  it  is  said,  were  sworn  in  for  this  purpose;  and 
it  will  always  be  told  as  an  odd  incident  of  that  famous 
scare  that  the  Prince  Louis  Napoleon,  then  living  in 
London,  was  one  of  those  who  volunteered  to  bear  arms  in 
the  preservation  of  order.  Not  a  long  time  was  to  pass 
away  before  the  most  lawless  outrage  on  the  order  and  life 
of  a  peaceful  city  was  to  be  perpetrated  by  the  special  com- 
mand of  the  man  who  was  so  ready  to  lend  the  saving  aid 
of  his  constable's  staff  to  protect  society  against  some 
poor  hundreds  or  thousands  of  English  working-men. 

The  crisis,  however,  luckily  proved  not  to  stand  in  need 
of  such  saviors  of  society.  The  Chartist  demonstration 
was  a  wretched  failure.  The  separation  of  the  Chartists 
who  wanted  force  from  those  who  wanted  orderly  proceed- 
ings reduced  the  project  to  nothing.  The  meeting  on 
Kennington  Common,  so  far  from  being  a  gathering  of 
half  a  million  of  men,  was  not  a  larger  concourse  than  a 
temperance  demonstration  had  often  drawn  together  on 
the  same  spot.  Some  twenty  or  twenty-five  thousand 
persons  were  on  Kennington  Common,  of  whom  at  least 
half  were  said  to  be  mere  lookers-on,  come  to  see  what 
was  to  happen,  and  caring  nothing  whatever  about  the 
People's  Charter.  The  procession  was  not  formed, 
O'Connor  himself  strongly  insisting  on  obedience  to  the 
orders  of  the  authorities.  There  were  speeches  of  the 
usual  kind  by  O'Connor  and  others;  and  the  opportunity 
was  made  available  by  some  of  the  more  extreme  and 
consequently  disappointed  Chartists  to  express  in  very 
vehement  language  their  not  unreasonable  conviction  that 


^44  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  leaders  of  the  convention  were  humbugs.  The  whole 
affair,  in  truth,  was  an  absurd  anachronism.  The  lovers 
of  law  and  order  could  have  desired  nothing  better  than 
that  it  should  thus  come  forth  in  the  light  of  day  and  show 
itself.  The  clap  of  the  hand  was  given,  but  the  slaves 
with  the  jars  of  jewels  did  not  appear.  It  is  not  that  the 
demands  of  the  Chartists  were  anachronisms  or  absurdities. 
We  have  already  shown  that  many  of  them  were  just  and 
reasonable,  and  that  all  came  within  the  fair  scope  of 
political  argument.  The  anachronism  was  in  the  idea 
that  the  display  of  physical  force  could  any  longer  be 
needed  or  be  allowed  to  settle  a  political  controversy  in 
England.  The  absurdity  was  in  the  notion  that  the 
wage-receiving  classes,  and  they  alone,"  are  the  people  of 
England." 

The  great  Chartist  petition  itself,  which  was  to  have 
made  so  profound  an  impression  on  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, proved  as  utter  a  failure  as  the  demonstration  on 
Kennington  Common.  Mr.  O'Connor,  in  presenting  this 
portentous  document,  boasted  that  it  would  be  found  to 
have  five  million  seven  hundred  thousand  signatures  in 
round  numbers.  The  calculation  was  made  in  very  round 
numbers  indeed.  The  Committee  on  Public  Petitions 
were  requested  to  make  a  minute  examination  of  the 
document,  and  to  report  to  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
committee  called  in  the  service  of  a  little  army  of  law- 
stationers'  clerks,  and  went  to  work  to  analyze  the  signa- 
tures. They  found,  to  begin  with,  that  the  whole  number 
of  signatures,  genuine  or  otherwise,  fell  short  of  two  mil- 
lions. But  that  was  not  all.  The  committee  found  in 
many  cases  that  whole  sheets  of  the  petition  were  signed 
by  one  hand,  and  that  eight  per  cent  of  the  signatures 
were  those  of  women.  It  did  not  need  much  investiga- 
tion to  prove  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  signatures 
were  not  genuine.  The  name  of  the  Queen,  of  Prince 
Albert,  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Lord 
John  Russell,  Colonel  Sibthorp,  and  various  other  public 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  J45 

personages,  appeared  again  and  again  on  the  Chartist  roll. 
Some  of  these  eminent  persons  would  appear  to  have  car- 
ried their  zeal  for  the  People's  Charter  so  far  as  to  keep 
signing  their  names  untiringly  all  over  the  petition.     A 
large  number  of  yet  stranger  allies  would  seem  to  have 
been  drawn  to  the  cause  of  the  Charter.      "  Cheeks  the 
Marine"  was  a  personage  very  familiar  at  that  time  to  the 
readers  of  Captain  Marryat's  sea  stories;  and  the  name  of 
that  mythical  hero  appeared  with  bewildering  iteration  in 
the  petition.     So  did  "  Davy  Jones ;"  so  did  various  persons 
describing  themselves  as  Pugnose,  Flatnose,  Woodenlegs, 
and  by  other  such  epithets  acknowledging  curious  personal 
defects.     We  need  not  describe  the  laughter  and  scorn 
which  these  revelations  produced.     There  really  was  not 
anything  very  marvellous  in  the  discovery.     The  petition 
was  got  up  in  great  haste  and  with  almost  utter  careless- 
ness.     Its  sheets  used  to  be  sent  anywhere,  and  left  lying 
about  anywhere,   on  a  chance   of   obtaining   signatures. 
The  temptation  to  school-boys  and  practical  jokers  of  all 
kinds  was  irresistible.     Wherever  there  was  a  mischievous 
hand  that  could  get  hold  of  a  pen,  there  was  some  name 
of  a  royal  personage  or  some  Cheeks  the  Marine  at  once 
added  to  the  muster-roll  of  the  Chartists.     As  a  matter  of 
fact,  almost  all  large  popular  petitions  are  found  to  have 
some  such  buffooneries  mixed  up  with  their  serious  busi- 
ness.      The    Committee    on    Petitions    have    on    several 
occasions  had  reason  to  draw  attention  to  the  obviously 
fictitious  nature  of  signatures  appended  to  such  documents. 
The  petitions  in  favor  of  O'Connell's  movement  used  to 
lie  at  the  doors  of  chapels  all  the  Sunday  long  in  Ireland, 
with  pen  and  ink  ready  for  all  who  approved  to  sign ;  and 
it  was  many  a  time  the  favorite  amusement  of  school-boys 
to  scrawl  down  the  most  grotesque  names  and  nonsensical 
imitations  of  names.     But  the  Chartist  petition  had  been 
so  loudly  boasted  of,  and  the  whole  Chartist  movement 
had  created  such  a  scare,  that  the   delight  of  the  public 
generally  at  any  discovery  that  threw  both  into  ridicule 


}46  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

was  overwhelming.  It  was  made  certain  that  the  number 
of  genuine  signatures  was  ridiculously  below  the  estimate 
formed  by  the  Chartist  leaders;  and  the  agitation,  after 
terrifying  respectability  for  a  long  time,  suddenly  showed 
itself  as  a  thing  only  to  be  laughed  at.  The  laughter  was 
stentorian  and  overwhelming.  The  very  fact  that  the 
petition  contained  so  many  absurdities  was  in  itself  an 
evidence  of  the  sincerity  of  those  who  presented  it.  It 
was  not  likely  that  they  would  have  furnished  their 
enemies  with  so  easy  and  tempting  a  way  of  turning  them 
into  ridicule,  if  they  had  known  or  suspected  that  there 
was  any  lack  of  genuineness  in  the  signatures,  or  that  they 
would  have  provided  so  ready  a  means  of  decrying  their 
truthfulness  as  to  claim  five  millions  of  names  for  a  docu- 
ment which  they  knew  to  have  less  than  two  millions. 
The  Chartist  leaders  in  all  their  doings  showed  a  want 
of  accurate  calculation,  and  of  the  frame  of  mind  which 
desires  or  appreciates  such  accuracy.  The  famous  petition 
was  only  one  other  example  of  their  habitual  weakness. 
It  did  not  bear  testimony  against  their  good  faith. 

The  effect,  however,  of  this  unlucky  petition  on  the 
English  public  mind  was  decisive.  From  that  day  Chart- 
ism never  presented  itself  to  the  ordinary  middle-  class 
Englishman  as  anything  but  an  object  of  ridicule.  The 
terror  of  the  agitation  was  gone.  There  were  efforts  made 
again  and  again  during  the  year  by  some  of  the  more 
earnest  and  extreme  of  the  Chartist  leaders  to  renew  the 
strength  of  the  agitation.  The  outbreak  of  the  Young 
Ireland  movement  found  many  sympathizers  among  the 
English  Chartists,  more  especially  in  its  earlier  stages; 
and  some  of  the  Chartists  in  London  and  other  great  Eng- 
lish cities  endeavored  to  light  up  the  fire  of  their  agitation 
again  by  the  help  of  some  brands  caught  up  from  the  pile 
of  disaffection  which  Mitchel  and  Meagher  were  setting 
ablaze  in  Dublin.  A  monster  gathering  of  Chartists  was 
announced  for  Whit-Monday,  June  12th,  and  again  the 
metropolis  was   thrown    into   a  momentary  alarm,   very 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  347 

diflferent  in  strength,  however,  from  that  of  the  famous 
loth  of  April.  Again  precautions  were  taken  by  the 
military  authorities  against  the  possible  rising  of  an  in- 
surrectionary mob.  Nothing  came  of  this  last  gasp  of 
Chartism.  The  Thnes  of  the  following  day  remarked  that 
there  was  absolutely  nothing  to  record,  "  nothing  except 
the  blankest  expectation,  the  most  miserable  gaping, 
gossiping,  and  grumbling  of  disappointed  listeners;  the 
standing  about,  the  roaming  to  and  fro,  the  dispersing  and 
the  sneaking  home  of  some  poor  simpletons  who  had  wan- 
dered forth  in  the  hope  of  some  miraculous  crisis  in  their 
affairs."  It  is  impossible  not  to  pity  those  who  were  thus 
deceived ;  not  to  feel  some  regret  for  the  earnestness,  the 
hope,  the  ignorant,  passionate  energy  which  were  thrown 
away. 

Nor  can  we  feel  only  surprise  and  contempt  for  those 
who  imagined  that  the  Charter  and  the  rule  of  what  was 
called  in  their  jargon  "  the  people"  would  do  something 
to  regenerate  their  miserable  lot.  They  had  at  least  seen 
that  up  to  that  time  Parliament  had  done  little  for  them. 
There  had  been  a  Parliament  of  aristocrats  and  landlords, 
and  it  had  for  generations  troubled  itself  little  about  the 
class  from  whom  Chartism  was  recruited.  The  sceptre  of 
legislative  power  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  Parlia- 
ment made  up  in  great  measure  of  the  wealthy  middle 
ranks,  and  it  had  thus  far  shown  no  inclination  to  distress 
itself  over-much  about  them.  Almost  every  single  meas- 
ure Parliament  has  passed  to  do  any  good  for  the  wages- 
receiving  classes  and  the  poor  generally  has  been  passed 
since  the  time  when  the  Chartists  began  to  be  a  power. 
Our  Corn-laws'  repeal,  our  factory  acts,  our  sanitary 
legislation,  our  measures  referring  to  the  homes  of  the 
poor — all  these  have  been  the  work  of  later  times  than 
those  which  engendered  the  Chartist  movement.  It  is 
easy  to  imagine  a  Chartist  replying,  in  the  early  days  of 
the  movement,  to  some  grave  remonstrances  from  wise 
legislators.     He  might  say,  "You  tell  me  I  am  mad  to 


348  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times.  > 

think  the  Charter  can  do  anything  for  me  and  my  class. 
But  can  you  tell  me  what  else  ever  has  done,  or  tried  to 
do,  any  good  for  them?  You  think  I  am  a  crazy  person, 
because  I  believe  that  a  popular  Parliament  could  make 
anything  of  the  task  of  government.  I  ask  you  what  have 
you  and  your  like  made  of  it  already?  Things  are  well 
enough,  no  doubt,  for  you  and  your  class,  a  pitiful  minor- 
ity;  but  they  could  not  be  any  worse  for  us,  and  we  might 
make  them  better,  so  far  as  the  great  majority  are  con- 
cerned. We  may  fairly  crave  a  trial  for  our  experiment. 
No  matter  how  wild  and  absurd  it  may  seem,  it  could  not 
turn  out  for  the  majority  any  worse  than  your  scheme  has 
done."  It  would  not  have  been  very  easy  then  to  answer 
a  speaker  who  took  this  line  of  argument.  In  truth  there 
was,  as  we  have  already  insisted,  grievance  enough  to 
excuse  the  Chartist  agitation,  and  hope  enough  in  the 
scheme  the  Chartists  proposed  to  warrant  its  fair  discus- 
sion. Such  movements  are  never  to  be  regarded  by  sensi- 
ble persons  as  the  work  merely  of  knaves  and  dupes. 

Chartism  bubbled  and  sputtered  a  little  yet  in  some  of 
the  provincial  towns,  and  even  in  London,  There  were 
Chartist  riots  in  Ashton,  Lancashire,  and  an  affray  with 
the  police,  and  the  killing,  before  the  affray,  it  is  painful 
to  have  to  say,  of  one  policeman.  There  were  Chartists 
arrested  in  Manchester  on  the  charge  of  preparing  insur- 
rectionary movements.  In  two  or  three  public-houses  in 
London  some  Chartist  juntas  were  arrested,  and  the  police 
believed  they  had  got  evidence  of  a  projected  rising  to 
take  in  the  whole  of  the  metropolis.  It  is  not  impossible 
that  some  wild  and  frantic  schemes  of  the  kind  were  talked 
of  and  partly  hatched  by  some  of  the  disappointed  fanatics 
of  the  movement.  Some  of  them  were  fiery  and  ignorant 
enough  for  anything;  and  throughout  this  memorable  year 
thrones  and  systems  kept  toppling  down  all  over  Europe 
in  a  manner  that  might  well  have  led  feather-headed 
agitators  to  fancy  that  nothing  was  stable,  and  that  in 
England,    too,    the  whistle   of  a  few  conspirators  might 


'  Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  349 

bring  about  a  transformation  scene.  All  this  folly  came 
to  nothing  but  a  few  arrests  and  a  few  not  heavy  sentences. 
Among  those  tried  in  London  on  charges  of  sedition 
merely  was  Mr.  Ernest  Jones,  who  was  sentenced  to  two 
years'  imprisonment.  Mr.  Jones  has  been  already  spoken 
of  as  a  man  of  position  and  of  high  culture;  a  poet  whose 
verses  sometimes  might  almost  claim  for  their  author  the 
possession  of  genius.  He  was  an  orator  whose  speeches 
then  and  after  obtained  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of 
John  Bright.  He  belonged  rather  to  the  school  of  revo- 
lutionists which  established  itself  as  Young  Ireland,  than 
to  the  class  of  the  poor  Fussells  and  Cuffeys  and  uneducated 
workingmen  who  made  up  the  foremost  ranks  of  the 
aggressive  Chartist  movement  in  its  later  period.  He 
might  have  had  a  brilliant  and  a  useful  career.  He  outlived 
the  Chartist  era ;  lived  to  return  to  peaceful  agitation,  to 
hold  public  controversy  with  the  eccentric  and  clever 
Professor  Blackie,  of  Edinburgh,  on  the  relative  advan- 
tages of  republicanism  and  monarchy,  and  to  stand  for  a 
Parliamentary  borough  at  the  general  election  of  1868; 
and  then  his  career  was  closed  by  death.  The  close  was 
sadly  premature  even  then.  He  had  plunged  irama- 
turely  into  politics,  and  although  a  whole  generation  had 
passed  away  since  his  dcbi/i,  he  was  but  a  young  man 
comparatively  when  the  last  scene  came. 

Here  comes,  not  inappropriately,  to  an  end  the  history 
of  English  Chartism.  It  died  of  publicity;  of  exposure 
to  the  air;  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League;  of  the  evident 
tendenc}^  of  the  time  to  settle  all  cpestions  by  reason, 
argument,  and  majorities ;  of  growing  education ;  of  a 
strengthening  sense  of  duty  among  all  the  more  influential 
classes.  When  Sir  John  Campbell  spoke  its  obituary  years 
before,  as  we  have  seen,  he  treated  it  as  simply  a  monster 
killed  by  the  just  severity  of  the  law.  Ten  years'  experi- 
ence taught  the  English  public  to  be  wiser  than  Sir  John 
Campbell.  Chartism  did  not  die  of  its  own  excesses ;  it 
became    an   anachronism ;    no  one    wanted  it   any  more. 


350  A  History  of  Our  Cwn  Times. 

All  that  was  sound  in  its  claims  asserted  itself,  and  was  in 
time  conceded.  But  its  active  or  aggressive  influence 
ceased  with  1848.  The  history  of  the  reign  of  Queen 
Victoria  has  not  any  further  to  concern  itself  about  Chart- 
ism. Not  since  that  year  has  there  been  serious  talk  or 
thought  of  any  agitation  asserting  its  claims  by  the  use  or 
even  the  display  of  armed  force  in  England. 

The  spirit  of  the  time  had,  meanwhile,  made  itself  felt 
in  a  different  way  in  Ireland.  For  some  months  before 
the  beginning  of  the  year  the  Young  Ireland  party  had 
been  established  as  a  rival  association  to  the  Repealers 
who  still  believed  in  the  policy  of  O'Connell.  It  was  in- 
evitable that  O'Connell's  agitation  should  beget  some  such 
movement.  The  great  agitator  had  brought  the  tempera- 
ment of  the  younger  men  of  his  party  up  to  a  fever  heat, 
and  it  was  out  of  the  question  that  all  that  heat  should  sub- 
side in  the  veins  of  younger  collegians  and  school-boys  at 
the  precise  moment  when  the  leader  found  that  he  had  been 
going  too  far,  and  gave  the  word  for  peace  and  retreat. 
The  influence  of  O'Connell  had  been  waning  for  a  time 
before  his  death.  It  was  a  personal  influence  depending 
on  his  eloquence  and  his  power,  and  these  of  course  had 
gone  down  with  his  personal  decay.  The  Nation  news- 
paper, which  was  conducted  and  written  for  by  some  ris- 
ing young  men  of  high  culture  and  remarkable  talent,  had 
long  been  writing  in  a  style  of  romantic  and  sentimental 
nationalism  which  could  hardly  give  much  satisfaction  to 
or  derive  much  satisfaction  from  the  somewhat  cunning 
and  trickish  agitation  which  O'Connell  had  set  going. 
The  Nation  and  the  clever  youths  who  wrote  for  it  were  all 
for  nationalism  of  the  Hellenic  or  French  type,  and  were 
disposed  to  laugh  at  constitutional  agitation,  and  to  chafe 
against  the  influence  of  the  priests.  The  famine  had  created 
an  immense  amount  of  unreasonable  but  certainly  not  un- 
natural indignation  against  the  Government,  who  were 
accused  of  having  paltered  with  the  agony  and  danger  of 
the  time,  and  having  clung  to  the  letter  of  the  doctrines  of 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  351 

political  economy  when  death  was  invading  Ireland  in  full 
force.  The  Young  Ireland  party  had  received  a  new  sup- 
port by  the  adhesion  of  Mr.  William  Smith  O'Brien  to 
their  ranks.  Mr.  O'Brien  was  a  man  of  considerable  in- 
fluence in  Ireland.  He  had  large  property  and  high  rank. 
He  was  connected  with  or  related  to  many  aristocratic 
families.  His  brother  was  Lord  Inchiquin;  the  title  of 
the  marquisate  of  Thomond  was  in  the  family.  He  was 
undoubtedly  descended  from  the  famous  Irish  hero  and 
king,  Brian  Boru,  and  was  almost  inordinately  proud  of 
his  claims  of  long  descent.  He  had  the  highest  personal 
character  and  the  finest  sense  of  honor;  but  his  capacity 
for  leadership  of  any  movement  was  very  slender.  A 
poor  speaker,  with  little  more  than  an  ordinary  country 
gentleman's  share  of  intellect,  O'Brien  was  a  well-mean- 
ing but  weak  and  vain  man,  whose  head  at  last  became 
almost  turned  by  the  homage  which  his  followers  and  the 
Irish  people  generally  paid  to  him.  He  was,  in  short, 
a  sort  of  Lafayette  manque  j  under  the  happiest  auspices 
he  could  never  have  been  more  than  a  successful  Lafayette, 
But  his  adhesion  to  the  cause  of  Young  Ireland  gave  the 
movement  a  decided  impulse.  His  rank,  his  legendary 
descent,  his  undoubted  chivalry  of  character  and  purity  of 
purpose,  lent  a  romantic  interest  to  his  appearance  as  the 
recognized  leader,  or  at  least  the  figure-head,  of  the  Young 
Irelanders. 

Smith  O'Brien  was  a  man  of  more  mature  years  than 
most  of  his  companions  in  the  movement.  He  was  some 
forty-three  or  four  years  of  age  when  he  took  the  leader- 
ship of  the  movement.  Thomas  Francis  Meagher,  the 
most  brilliant  orator  of  the  party,  a  man  who  under  other 
conditions  might  have  risen  to  great  distinction  in  public 
life,  was  then  only  about  two  or  three  and  twenty. 
Mitchel  and  Duffy,  who  were  regarded  as  elders  among 
the  Young  Irelanders,  were  perhaps  each  some  thirty  years 
of  age.  There  were  many  men,  more  or  less  prominent 
in  the  movement,  who  were  still  younger  than  Meagher. 


352  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

One  of  these,  who  afterward  rose  to  some  distinction  in 
America,  and  is  long  since  dead,  wrote  a  poem  about  the 
time  when  the  Young  Ireland  movement  was  at  its  height, 
in  which  he  commemorated  sadly  his  attainment  of  his 
eighteenth  year,  and  deplored  that,  at  an  age  when  Chat- 
terton  was  mighty  and  Keats  had  glimpses  into  spirit-land 
• — the  age  of  eighteen,  to  wit — he,  this  young  Irish  patriot, 
had  yet  accomplished  nothing  for  his  native  country. 
Most  of  his  companions  sympathized  fully  with  him,  and 
thought  his  impatience  natural  and  reasonable.  The 
Young  Ireland  agitation  was  at  first  a  sort  of  college  de- 
bating society  movement,  and  it  never  became  really 
national.  It  was  composed  for  the  most  part  of  young 
journalists,  young  scholars,  amater.r  litterateurs,  poets  en 
herbe,  orators  moulded  on  the  finest  p>itternsof  Athens  and 
the  French  Revolution,  and  aspiring  youths  of  the  Cheru- 
bino  time  of  life,  who  were  ambitious  of  distinction  as 
heroes  in  the  eyes  of  young  ladies.  Among  the  recognized 
leaders  of  the  party  there  was  hardly  one  in  want  of  money. 
Some  of  them  were  young  men  of  fortune,  or  at  least  the 
sons  of  wealthy  parents.  Not  many  of  the  dangerous 
revolutionary  elements  were  to  be  found  among  these 
clever,  respectable,  and  precocious  youths.  The  Young 
Ireland  movement  was  as  absolutely  imlike  the  Chartist 
movement  in  England  as  any  political  agitation  could  be 
unlike  another.  Unreal  and  unlucky  as  the  Chartist  move- 
ment proved  to  be,  its  ranks  were  recruited  by  genuine 
passion  and  genuine  misery. 

Before  the  death  of  O' Council  the  formal  secession  of 
the  Young  Ireland  party  from  the  regular  Repealers  had 
taken  place.  It  arose  out  of  an  attempt  of  O'Connell  to 
force  upon  the  whole  body  a  declaration  condemning  the 
use  of  physical  force — of  the  sword,  as  it  was  grandiosely 
called — in  any  patriotic  movement  whatever.  It  was  in 
itself  a  sign  of  O'Connell's  failing  powers  and  judgment 
that  he  expected  to  get  a  body  of  men  about  the  age  of 
Meagher  to  make  a  formal  declaration  against  the  weapon 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  ^53 

or  Leonidas  and  Miltiades,  and  all  the  other  heroes  dear  to 
classically-instructed  youth.  Meagher  declaimed  against 
the  idea  in  a  burst  of  poetic  rhetoric  which  made  his  fol- 
lowers believe  that  a  new  Grattan  of  bolder  style  was 
coming  up  to  recall  the  manhood  of  Ireland  that  had  been 
banished  by  the  agitation  of  O'Connell  and  the  priests. 
*'  I  am  not  one  of  those  tame  moralists,"  the  young  orator 
exclaimed,  "who  say  that  liberty  is  not  worth  one  drop 
of  blood.  .  .  .  Against  this  miserable  maxim  the  noblest 
virtue  that  has  saved  and  sanctified  humanity  appears  in 
judgment.  From  the  blue  waters  of  the  Bay  of  Salamis; 
from  the  valley  over  which  the  sun  stood  still  and  lit  the 
Israelite  to  victory;  from  the  cathedral  in  which  the  sword 
of  Poland  has  been  sheathed  in  the  shroud  of  Kosciusko ; 
from  the  convent  of  St.  Isidore,  where  the  fiery  hand  that 
rent  the  ensign  of  St.  George  upon  the  plains  of  Ulster 
has  mouldered  into  dust;  from  the  sands  of  the  desert, 
where  the  wild  genius  of  the  Algerine  so  long  has  scared 
the  eagle  of  the  Pyrenees;  from  the  ducal  palace  in  this 
kingdom,  where  the  memory  of  the  gallant  and  seditious 
Geraldine  enhances  more  than  royal  favor  the  splendor  of 
his  race ;  from  the  solitary  grave  within  this  mute  city 
which  a  dying  bequest  has  left  without  an  epitaph — oh! 
from  every  spot  where  heroism  has  had  a  sacrifice  or  a 
triumph,  a  voice  breaks  in  upon  the  cringing  crowd  that 
cherishes  this  maxim,  crying,  Away  with  it — away  with  it !" 
rThe  reader  will  probably  think  that  a  generation  of 
young  men  might  have  enjoyed  as  much  as  they  could  get 
of  this  sparkling  declamation  without  much  harm  being 
done  thereby  to  the  cause  of  order.  Only  a  crowd  of  well- 
educated  young  Irishmen  fresh  from  college,  and  with  the 
teaching  of  their  country's  history  which  the  Nation  was 
pouring  out  Aveekly  in  prose  and  poetry,  could  possibly 
have  understood  all  its  historical  allusions.  No  harm,  in- 
deed, would  have  come  of  this  graceful  and  poetic  move- 
ment were  it  not  for  events  which  the  Young  Ireland  party 
had  no  share  in  bringing  about. 

Vol.  I.— 23  ,  i 


^54  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

The  Continental  revolutions  of  the  year  1848  suddenly 
converted  the  movement  from  a  literary  and  poetical  or- 
ganization into  a  rebellious  conspiracy.  The  fever  of  that 
wild  epoch  spread  itself  at  once  over  Ireland.  When 
crowns  were  going  down  everywhere,  what  wonder  if 
Hellenic  Young  Irelandism  believed  that  the  moment  had 
come  when  the  crown  of  the  Saxon  invader  too  was  des- 
tined to  fall?  The  French  Revolution  and  the  flight  of 
Louis  Philippe  set  Ireland  in  a  rapture  of  hope  and  rebel- 
lious joy.  Lamartine  became  the  hero  of  the  hour.  A 
copy  of  his  showy,  superficial "  Girondists"  was  in  the  hand 
of  every  true  Young  Irelander.  Meagher  was  at  once  de- 
clared to  be  the  Vergniaud  of  the  Irish  revolution.  Smith 
O'Brien  was  called  upon  to  become  its  Lafayette.  A 
deputation  of  Young  Irelanders,  with  O'Brien  and  Mea- 
gher at  their  head,  waited  upon  Lamartine,  and  were  re- 
ceived by  him  with  a  cool  good-sense  which  made  Eng- 
lishmen greatly  respect  his  judgment  and  prudence,  but 
which  much  disconcerted  the  hopes  of  the  Young  Ireland- 
ers. Many  of  these  latter  appear  to  have  taken  in  their 
most  literal  sense  some  words  of  Lamartine's  about  the 
sympathy  of  the  new  French  Republic  with  the  struggles 
of  oppressed  nationalities,  and  to  have  fancied  that  the 
Republic  would  seriously  consider  the  propriety  of  going 
to  war  with  England  at  the  request  of  a  few  young  men 
from  Ireland,  headed  by  a  country  gentleman  and  member 
of  Parliament.  In  the  mean  time  a  fresh  and  a  stronger 
influence  than  that  of  O'Brien  or  Meagher  had  arisen  in 
Young  Irelandism.  Young  Ireland  itself  now  split  into 
two  sections,  one  for  immediate  action,  the  other  for  cau- 
tion and  delay.  The  party  of  action  acknowledged  the 
leadership  of  John  Mitchel.  The  organ  of  this  section 
was  the  newspaper  started  by  Mitchel  in  opposition  to  the 
Nation,  which  had  grown  too  slow  for  him.  The  new 
journal  was  called  the  United  Irishman,  and  in  a  short  time 
it  had  completely  distanced  the  Nation  in  popularity  and 
in  circulation.     The  deliberate  policy  of  the  United  Irish- 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  355 

man  was  to  force  the  hand  first  of  the  Government  and 
then  of  the  Irish  people.  Mitchel  had  made  up  his  mind 
so  to  rouse  the  passion  of  the  people  as  to  compel  the  Gov- 
ernment to  take  steps  for  the  prevention  of  rebellion  by 
the  arrest  of  some  of  the  leaders.  Then  Mitchel  calculated 
upon  the  populace  rising  to  defend  or  rescue  their  heroes 
— and  then  the  game  vi^ould  be  afoot ;  Ireland  would  be 
entered  in  rebellion ;  and  the  rest  would  be  for  fate  to 
decide. 

This  looks  now  a  very  wild  and  hopeless  scheme.  vSo, 
of  course,  it  proved  itself  to  be.  But  it  did  not  appear  so 
hopeless  at  the  time,  even  to  cool  heads.  At  least  it  may 
be  called  the  only  scheme  which  had  the  slightest  chance 
of  success ;  we  do  not  say  of  success  in  establishing  the  in- 
dependence of  Ireland,  which  Mitchel  sought  for,  but  in 
setting  a  genuine  rebellion  afoot.  Mitchel  was  the  one 
formidable  man  among  the  rebels  of  '48.  He  was  the  one 
man  who  distinctly  knew  what  he  wanted,  and  was  pre- 
pared to  run  any  risk  to  get  it.  He  was  cast  in  the  very 
mould  of  the  genuine  revolutionist,  and  under  different 
circumstances  might  have  played  a  formidable  part.  He 
came  from  the  northern  part  of  the  island,  and  was  a 
Protestant  Dissenter.  It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  note  that  all 
the  really  formidable  rebels  Ireland  has  produced  in 
modern  times,  from  Wolfe  Tone  to  Mitchel,  have  been 
Protestants.  Mitchel  was  a  man  of  great  literary  talent; 
indeed  a  man  of  something  like  genius.  He  wrote  a  clear, 
bold,  incisive  prose,  keen  in  its  scorn  and  satire,  going 
directly  to  the  heart  of  its  purpose.  As  mere  prose,  some 
of  it  is  worth  reading  even  to-day  for  its  cutting  force  and 
pitiless  irony.  Mitchel  issued  in  his  paper  week  after 
week  a  challenge  to  the  Government  to  prosecute  him. 
He  poured  out  the  most  fiery  sedition,  and  used  every  in- 
centive that  words  could  supply  to  rouse  a  hot-headed  peo- 
ple to  arms,  or  an  impatient  Government  to  some  act  of 
severe  repression.  Mitchel  was  quite  ready  to  make  a 
sacrifice  of  himself  if  it  were  necessary.     It  is  possible 


^0  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

enough  that  he  had  persuaded  himself  into  the  belief  that 
a  rising  in  Ireland  against  the  Government  might  be  suc- 
cessful. But  there  is  good  reason  to  think  that  he  would 
have  been  quite  satisfied  if  he  could  have  stirred  up  by  any 
process  a  genuine  and  sanguinary  insurrection,  which 
would  have  read  well  in  the  papers,  and  redeemed  the  Irish 
Nationalists  from  what  he  considered  the  disgrace  of  never 
having  shown  that  they  knew  how  to  die  for  their  cause. 
He  kept  on  urging  the  people  to  prepare  for  warlike  effort, 
and  every  week's  United  Ii-ishmati  contained  long  descrip- 
tions of  how  to  make  pikes  and  how  to  use  them ;  how  to 
cast  bullets,  how  to  make  the  streets  as  dangerous  for  the 
hoofs  of  cavalry  horses  as  Bruce  made  the  field  of  Ban- 
nockburn.  Some  of  the  recipes,  if  we  may  call  them  so, 
were  of  a  peculiarly  ferocious  kind.  The  use  of  vitriol 
was  recommended  among  other  destructive  agencies.  A 
feeling  of  detestation  was  not  unnaturally  aroused  against 
Mitchel,  even  in  the  minds  of  many  who  sympathized  with 
his  general  opinions;  and  those  whom  we  may  call  the 
Girondists  of  the  party  somewhat  shrank  from  him,  and 
would  gladly  have  been  rid  of  him.  It  is  true  that  the 
most  ferocious  of  these  vitriolic  articles  were  not  written 
by  him ;  nor  did  he  know  of  the  famous  recommendation 
about  the  throwing  of  vitriol  until  it  appeared  in  print. 
He  was,  however,  justly  and  properly  as  well  as  technically 
responsible  for  all  that  appeared  in  a  paper  started  with 
such  a  purpose  as  that  of  the  United  Irishman,  and  it  is  not 
even  certain  that  he  would  have  disapproved  of  the  vitriol- 
throwing  recommendation  if  he  had  known  of  it  in  time. 
He  never  disavowed  it,  nor  took  any  pains  to  show  that  it 
was  not  his  own.  The  fact  that  he  was  not  its  author  is, 
therefore,  only  mentioned  here  as  a  matter  more  or  less  in- 
teresting, and  not  at  all  as  any  excuse  for  Mitchel's  general 
style  of  newspaper  war-making.  He  was  a  fanatic,  clever 
and  fearless;  he  would  neither  have  asked  quarter  nor 
given  it;  and,  undoubtedly,  if  Ireland  had  had  many  men 
of  his  desperate  resolve  she  would  have  been  plunged  into 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  ^57 

a  bloody,  an  obstinate,  and  a  disastrous  contest  against  the 
strength  of  the  British  Government. 

In  the  mean  time  that  Government  had  to  do  something. 
The  Lord-lieutenant  could  not  go  on  forever  allowing  a 
newspaper  to  scream  out  appeals  to  rebellion,  and  to  pub- 
lish every  week  minute  descriptions  of  the  easiest  and 
quickest  way  of  killing  off  English  soldiers.  The  existing 
laws  were  not  strong  enough  to  deal  with  Mitchel  and  to 
suppress  his  paper.  It  would  have  been  of  little  account 
to  proceed  against  him  under  the  ordinary  laws  which 
condemned  seditious  speaking  or  writing.  Prosecutions 
were,  in  fact,  set  on  foot  against  O'Brien,  Meagher,  and 
Mitchel  himself  for  ordinary  offences  of  that  kind;  but 
the  accused  men  got  bail  and  went  on  meantime  speaking 
and  writing  as  before,  and  when  the  cases  came  to  be  tried 
by  a  jury  the  Government  failed  to  obtain  a  conviction. 
The  Government,  therefore,  brought  in  a  bill  for  the  bet- 
ter security  of  the  Crown  and  Government,  making  all 
written  incitement  to  insurrection  or  resistance  to  the  law 
felony,  punishable  with  transportation.  This  measure 
was  passed  rapidly  through  all  its  stages.  It  enabled  the 
Governm.ent  to  suppress  newspapers  like  the  United  Irish- 
man, and  to  keep  in  prison  without  bail,  while  awaiting 
trial,  any  one  charged  with  an  offence  under  the  new  Act. 
Mitchel  soon  gave  the  authorities  an  opportunity  of  testing 
the  efficacy  of  tlie  Act  in  his  person.  He  repeated  his  in- 
citements to  insurrection,  was  arrested  and  thrown  into 
prison.  The  climax  of  the  excitement  in  Ireland  was 
reached  when  Mitchel 's  trial  came  on.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  he  was  filled  with  a  strong  hope  that  his  follow- 
ers would  attempt  to  rescue  him.  He  wrote  from  his  cell 
that  he  could  hear  around  the  walls  of  his  prison  every 
night  the  tramp  of  hundreds  of  sympathizers,  "  felons  in 
heart  and  soul."  The  Government,  for  their  part,  were 
in  full  expectation  that  some  sort  of  rising  would  take 
place.  For  the  time,  Smith  O'Brien,  Meagher,  and  all  the 
other  Young  Irelanders  were  1^1^^^"^^  ir^to  the  shade,  and 


^58  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  eyes  of  the  whole  country  were  turned  upon  Mitchel's 
cell.  Had  there  been  another  Mitchel  out-of-doors,  as 
fearless  and  reckless  as  the  Mitchel  in  the  prison,  a  sanguin- 
ary outbreak  would  probably  have  taken  place.  But  the 
leaders  of  the  movement  outside  were  by  no  means  clear 
in  their  own  minds  as  to  the  course  they  ought  to  pursue. 
Many  of  them  were  well  satisfied  of  the  hopelessness  and 
folly  of  any  rebellious  movement,  and  nearly  all  were  quite 
aware  that,  in  any  case,  the  country  just  then  was  wholly 
unprepared  for  anything  of  the  kind.  Not  a  few  had  a 
shrewd  suspicion  that  the  movement  never  had  taken  any 
real  hold  on  the  heart  of  the  country.  Some  were  jealous 
of  Mitchel's  sudden  popularity,  and  in  their  secret  hearts 
were  disposed  to  curse  him  for  the  trouble  he  had  brought 
on  them.  But  they  could  not  attempt  to  give  open  utter- 
ance to  such  a  sentiment.  Mitchel's  boldness  and  resolve 
had  placed  them  at  a  sad  disadvantage.  He  had  that 
superiority  of  influence  over  them  that  downright  deter- 
mination always  gives  a  man  over  colleagues  who  do  not 
quite  know  what  they  would  have.  One  thing,  however, 
they  could  do;  and  that  they  did.  They  discouraged  any 
idea  of  an  attempt  to  rescue  Mitchel.  His  trial  came  on. 
He  was  found  guilty.  He  made  a  short  but  powerful  and 
impassioned  speech  from  the  dock ;  he  was  sentenced  to 
fourteen  years'  transportation;  he  was  hurried  under  an 
escort  of  cavalry  through  the  streets  of  Dublin,  put  on 
board  a  ship  of  war,  and  in  a  few  hours  was  on  his  way  to 
Bermuda.  Dublin  remained  perfectly  quiet;  the  country 
outside  hardly  knew  what  was  happening  until  Mitchel 
was  well  on  his  way,  and  far-seeing  persons  smiled  to 
themselves  and  said  the  danger  was  all  over. 

So,  indeed,  it  proved  to  be.  The  remainder  of  the  pro- 
ceedings partook  rather  of  the  nature  of  burlesque.  The 
Young  Ireland  leaders  became  more  demonstrative  than 
ever.  The  Nation  newspaper  now  went  in  openly  for  re- 
bellion, but  rebellion  at  some  unnamed  time,  and  when 
Ireland  should  be  ready  to  meet  the  Saxon.     It  seemed  to 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  359 

be  assumed  that  the  Saxon,  with  a  characteristic  love  of, 
fair-play,  would  let  his  foes  make  all  the  preparations  they 
pleased  without  any  interference,  and  that  when  they  an- 
nounced themselves  ready,  then,  but  not  until  then,  would 
he  come  forth  to  fight  with  them.  Smith  O'Brien  went 
about  the  country  holding  reviews  of  the  "Confederates," 
as  the  Young  Irelanders  called  themselves.  The  Govern- 
ment, however,  showed  a  contempt  for  the  rules  of  fair- 
play,  suspended  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  in  Ireland,  and 
issued  warrants  for  the  arrest  of  Smith  O'Brien,  Meagher, 
and  other  Confederate  leaders.  The  Young  Irelanders  re- 
ceived the  news  of  this  unchivalric  proceeding  with  an 
outburst  of  anger  and  surprise  which  was  evidently 
genuine.  They  had  clearly  made  up  their  minds  that 
they  were  to  go  on  playing  at  preparation  for  rebellion  as 
long  as  they  liked  to  keep  up  the  game.  They  were  com- 
pletely puzzled  by  the  new  condition  of  things.  It  was 
not  very  clear  what  Leonidas  or  Vergniaud  would  have 
done  under  such  circumstances;  it  was  certain  that  if  they 
were  all  arrested  the  country  would  not  stir  hand  or  foot 
on  their  behalf.  Some  of  the  principal  leaders,  therefore 
— vSmith  O'Brien,  Meagher,  Dillon,  and  others — left  Dub- 
lin and  went  down  into  the  country.  It  is  not  certain 
even  yet  whether  they  had  any  clear  purpose  of  rebellion 
at  first.  It  seems  probable  that  they  thought  of  evading 
arrest  for  a  while,  and  trying  meantime  if  the  country  was 
ready  to  follow  them  into  an  armed  movement.  The)'' 
held  a  series  of  gatherings  which  might  be  described  as 
meetings  of  agitators,  or  marshallings  of  rebels,  according 
as  one  was  pleased  to  interpret  their  purpose.  But  this 
sort  of  thing  very  soon  drifted  into  rebellion.  The  prin- 
cipal body  of  the  followers  of  Smith  O'Brien  came  into 
collision  with  the  police  at  a  place  called  Ballingarry,  in 
Tipperary.  They  attacked  a  small  force  of  police,  who 
took  refuge  in  the  cottage  of  a  poor  widow  named  Cor- 
mack.  The  police  held  the  house  as  a  besieged  fort,  and 
the  rebels  attacked  them  from  the  famous  cabbage-garden 


^6o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

outside.  The  police  fired  a  few  volleys.  The  rebels  fired, 
with  what  wretched  muskets  and  rifles  they  possessed,  but 
without  harming  a  single  policeman.  After  a  few  of  them 
had  been  killed  or  wounded — it  never  was  perfectly  certain 
that  any  were  actually  killed — the  rebel  army  dispersed, 
and  the  rebellion  was  all  over.  In  a  few  days  after,  poor 
Smith  O'Brien  was  taken  quietly  at  the  railway  station  in 
Thurles,  Tipperary.  He  was  calmly  buying  a  ticket  for 
Limerick  when  he  was  recognized.  He  made  no  resist- 
ance whatever,  and  seemed  to  regard  the  whole  mummery 
as  at  an  end.  He  accepted  his  fate  with  the  composure  of 
a  gentleman,  and,  indeed,  in  all  the  part  which  was  left 
for  him  to  play  he  bore  himself  with  dignity.  It  is  but 
justice  to  an  unfortunate  gentleman  to  say  that  some  re- 
ports which  were  rather  ignobly  set  abroad  about  his  hav- 
ing showed  a  lack  of  personal  courage  in  the  Ballingarry 
affray  were,  as  all  will  readily  believe,  quite  untrue. 
Some  of  the  police  deposed  that  during  the  fight,  if  fight 
it  could  be  called,  poor  O'Brien  exposed  his  life  with  en- 
tire recklessness.  One  policeman  said  he  could  have  shot 
him  easily  at  several  periods  of  the  little  drama,  but  he 
felt  reluctant  to  be  the  slayer  of  the  misguided  descendant 
of  the  Irish  kings.  It  afterward  appeared,  also,  that  any 
little  chance  of  carrying  on  any  manner  of  rebellion  was 
put  a  stop  to  by  Smith  O'Brien's  own  resolution  that  his 
rebels  must  not  seize  the  private  property  of  any  one.  He 
insisted  that  his  rebellion  must  pay  its  way,  and  the  funds 
were  soon  out.  The  Confederate  leader  woke  from  a  dream 
when  he  saw  his  followers  dispersing  after  the  first  volley 
or  two  from  the  police.  From  that  moment  he  behaved 
like  a  dignified  gentleman,  equal  to  the  fate  he  had  brought 
upon  him. 

Meagher  and  two  of  his  companions  were  arrested  a  few 
days  after,  as  they  were  wandering  hopelessly  and  aim- 
lessly through  the  mountains  of  Tipperary.  The  prison- 
ers were  brought  for  trial  before  a  special  commission 
held  at  Clonmel,  in  Tipperary,  in  the  following  September. 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  561 

Smith  O'Brien  was  the  first  put  on  trial,  and  he  was  found 
guilty.  He  said  a  few  words  with  grave  and  dignified 
composure,  simply  declaring-  that  he  had  endeavored  to  do 
his  duty  to  his  native  country,  and  that  he  was  prepared 
to  abide  the  consequences.  He  was  sentenced  to  death 
after  the  old  form  in  cases  of  high-treason — to  be  hanged, 
beheaded,  and  quartered.  Meagher  was  afterward  found 
guilty.  Great  commiseration  was  felt  for  him.  His  youth 
and  his  eloquence  made  all  men  and  women  pity  him. 
His  father  was  a  wealthy  man  who  had  had  a  respected 
career  in  Parliament;  and  there  had  seemed  at  one  time 
to  be  a  bright  and  happy  life  before  young  Meagher.  The 
short  address  in  which  Meagher  vindicated  his  actions, 
when  called  upon  to  show  cause  why  sentence  of  death 
should  not  be  passed  upon  him,  was  full  of  manly  and 
pathetic  eloquence.  He  had  nothing,  he  said,  to  retract 
or  to  ask  pardon  for.  "  I  am  not  here  to  crave  with  falter- 
ing lip  the  life  I  have  consecrated  to  the  independence 
of  my  country.  ...  I  offer  to  my  country,  as  some  proof 
of  the  sincerity  with  which  I  have  thought  and  spoken  and 
struggled  for  her,  the  life  of  a  young  heart.  .  .  .  The 
history  of  Ireland  explains  my  crime,  and  justifies  it. 
.  ,  .  Even  here,  where  the  shadows  of  death  surround 
me,  and  from  which  I  see  my  early  grave  opening  for  me 
in  no  consecrated  soil,  the  hope  which  beckoned  me  forth 
on  that  perilous  sea  whereon  I  have  been  wrecked,  ani- 
mates, consoles,  enraptures  me.  No,  I  do  not  despair  of 
my  poor  old  country,  her  peace,  her  liberty,  her  glory." 

Meagher  was  sentenced  to  death  with  the  same  hideous 
formularies  as  those  which  had  been  observed  in  the  case 
of  Smith  O'Brien.  No  one,  however,  really  believed  for 
a  moment  that  such  a  sentence  was  likely  to  be  carried 
out  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  The  sentence  of  death 
was  changed  into  one  of  transportation  for  life.  Nor  was 
even  this  carried  out.  The  convicts  were  all  sent  to 
Australia,  and  a  few  years  after  Mitchel  contrived  to  make 
his  escape,  followed  by  Meagher.     The  manner  of  escape 


362  A  Hisfoiy  of  Our  Own  Times. 

was  at  least  of  doubtful  credit  to  the  prisoners,  for  they 
were  placed  under  parole,  and  a  very  nice  question  was 
raised  as  to  whether  they  had  not  broken  their  parole  by 
the  attempt  to  escape.  It  was  a  nice  question,  which  in 
the  case  of  men  of  very  delicate  sense  of  honor  could,  one 
would  think,  hardly  have  arisen  at  all.  The  point  in 
Mitchel's  case  was,  that  he  actually  went  to  the  police  court 
within  whose  jurisdiction  he  was,  formally  and  publicly 
announced  to  the  magistrate  that  he  withdrew  his  parole, 
and  invited  the  magistrate  to  arrest  him  then  and  there. 
But  the  magistrate  was  unprepared  for  his  coming,  and 
was  quite  thrown  off  his  guard.  Mitchel  was  armed,  and 
so  was  a  friend  who  accompanied  him,  and  who  had 
planned  and  carried  out  the  escape.  They  had  horses 
waiting  at  the  door,  and  when  they  saw  that  the  magistrate 
did  not  know  what  to  do,  they  left  the  court,  mounted  the 
horses,  and  rode  away.  It  was  contended  by  Mitchel  and 
by  his  companion,  Mr.  P.  J.  Smyth  (afterward  a  distin- 
guished member  of  Parliament),  that  they  had  fulfilled 
all  the  conditions  required  by  the  parole,  and  had  formally 
and  honorably  withdrawn  it.  One  is  only  surprised  how 
men  of  honor  could  thus  puzzle  and  deceive  themselves. 
The  understood  condition  of  a  parole  is  that  a  man  who 
intends  to  withdraw  it  shall  place  himself  before  his  cap- 
tors in  exactly  the  same  condition  as  he  was  when  on  his 
pledged  word  of  honor  they  allowed  him  a  comparative 
liberty.  It  is  evident  that  a  prisoner  would  never  be  al- 
lowed to  go  at  large  on  parole  if  he  were  to  make  use  of 
his  liberty  to  arrange  all  the  conditions  of  an  escape,  and, 
when  everything  was  ready,  take  his  captors  by  surprise, 
tell  them  he  was  no  longer  bound  by  the  conditions  of  the 
pledge,  and  that  they  might  keep  him  if  they  could.  This 
was  the  view  taken  by  Smith  O'Brien,  who  declined  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  any  plot  for  escape  while  he  was 
on  parole.  The  advisers  of  the  Crown  recommended  that 
a  conditional  pardon  should  be  given  to  the  gallant  and 
unfortunate  gentleman  who  had  behaved  in  so  honorable 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  ^6} 

a  manner.     Smith  O'Brien  received  a  pardon  on  condition 
of  his  not  returning  to  these  islands;  but  this  condition 
was  withdrawn  after  a  time,  and  he  came  back  to  Ireland. 
He  died  quietly  in  Wales,  in  1864.     Mitchel  settled  for 
a  while  in  Richmond,  Virginia,  and  became  an  ardent  ad- 
vocate of  slavery  and  an  impassioned  champion  of  the 
Southern  rebellion.     He  returned  to  the  North  after  the 
rebellion,  and  more  lately  came  to  Ireland,  where,  owing 
to  some  defect  in  the  criminal  law,  he  could  not  be  arrested, 
his  time  of  penal  servitude  having  expired,  although  he 
had  not  served  it.     He  was  still  a  hero  with  a  certain  class 
of  the  people;  he  was  put  up  as  a  candidate  for  an  Irish 
county,   and  elected.     He  was  not  allowed  to  enter  the 
House  of  Commons,  however ;  the  election  was  declared 
void,  and  a  new  writ  was  issued.     He  was  elected  again, 
and  some  turmoil  was  expected,  when  suddenly  Mitchel, 
who  had  long  been  in  sinking  health,  was  withdrawn  from 
the  controversy  by  death.     He  should  have  died  before. 
The  later  years  of  his  life  were  only  an  anti-climax.     His 
attitude  in  the  dock  in  1848  had  something  of  dignity  and 
heroism  in  it,  and  even  the  staunchest  enemies  of  his  cause 
admired  him.     He  had  undoubtedly  great  literary  ability, 
and  if  he  had  never  reappeared  in  politics  the  world  would 
have  thought  that  a  really  brilliant  light  had  been  pre- 
maturely extinguished.     Meagher  served  in  the  army  of 
the  Federal  States  when  the  war  broke  out,  and  showed 
much  of  the  soldier's  spirit  and  capacity.     His  end  was 
premature  and  inglorious.     He  fell  from  the  deck  of  a 
steamer  one  night;  it  was  dark,  and  there  was  a  strong 
current  running;  help  came  too  late.     A  false  step,  a  dark 
right,  and  the  muddy  waters  of  the  Missouri  closed  the 
career  that  had  opened  with  so  much  promise  of  bright- 
ness. 

Many  of  the  conspicuous  Young  Irelanders  rose  to  some 
distinction.  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  the  editor  of  the  Na- 
tion, who  was  twice  put  on  his  trial  after  the  failure  of  the 
insurrection,  but  whom  the  jury  would  not  on  either  oc- 


364  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

casion  convict,  became  a  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  afterward  emigrated  to  the  colony  of  Victoria. 
He  rose  to  be  Prime-minister  there,  and  received  knight- 
hood and  a  pension.  Thomas  Darcy  M'Gee,  another 
prominent  rebel,  went  to  the  United  States,  and  thence  to 
Canada,  where  he  rose  to  be  a  minister  of  the  Crown. 
He  was  one  of  the  most  loyal  supporters  of  the  British 
connection.  His  untimely  death  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin 
was  lamented  in  England  as  well  as  in  the  colony  he  had 
served  so  well.  Some  of  the  Young  Irelanders  remained 
in  the  United  States  and  won  repute ;  others  returned  to 
England,  and  of  these  not  a  few  entered  the  House  of 
Commons  and  were  respected  there,  the  follies  of  their 
youth  quite  forgotten  by  their  colleagues,  even  if  not  dis- 
owned by  themselves.  A  remarkable  illustration  of  the 
spirit  of  fairness  that  generally  pervades  the  House  of 
Commons  is  found  in  the  fact  that  every  one  there  re- 
spected John  Martin,  who  to  the  day  of  his  death  avowed 
himself,  in  Parliament  and  out  of  it,  a  consistent  and  un- 
repentant opponent  of  British  rule  in  Ireland.  He  was 
respected  because  of  the  purity  of  his  character  and  the 
transparent  sincerity  of  his  purpose.  Martin  had  been 
devoted  to  Mitchel  in  his  lifetime,  and  he  died  a  few  days 
after  Mitchel's  death. 

The  Young  Ireland  movement  came  and  vanished  like  a 
shadow.  It  never  had  any  reality  or  substance  in  it.  It 
was  a  literary  and  poetic  inspiration  altogether.  It  never 
took  the  slightest  hold  of  the  peasantry.  It  hardly  touched 
any  men  of  mature  years.  It  was  a  rather  pretty  playing 
at  rebellion.  It  was  in  imitation  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, as  the  Girondists  imitated  the  patriots  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  But  it  might,  perhaps,  have  had  a  chance  of  doing 
memorable  mischief  if  the  policy  of  the  one  only  man  in 
the  business  who  really  was  in  earnest,  and  was  reckless, 
had  been  carried  out.  It  is  another  illustration  of  the 
fact,  which  O'Connell's  movement  had  exemplified  before, 
that  in  Irish  politics  a  climax  cannot  be  repeated  or  re- 


Chartism  and  Young  Ireland.  36^ 

called.  There  is  something  fitful  in  all  Irish  agitation. 
The  national  emotion  can  be  wrought  up  to  a  certain 
temperature;  and  if  at  that  boiling-point  nothing  is  done, 
the  heat  suddenly  goes  out,  and  no  blowing  of  Cyclopean 
bellows  can  rekindle  it.  The  Repeal  agitation  was  brought 
up  to  this  point  when  the  meeting  at  Clontarf  was  con- 
vened ;  the  dispersal  of  the  meeting  was  the  end  of  the 
whole  agitation.  With  the  Young  Ireland  movement  the 
trial  of  Mitchel  formed  the  climax.  After  that  a  wise 
legislator  would  have  known  that  there  was  nothing  more 
to  fear.  Petion,  the  revolutionary  Mayor  of  Paris,  knew 
that  when  it  rained  his  partisans  could  do  nothing.  There 
were,  in  1848,  observant  Irishmen  who  knew  that  after  the 
Mitchel  climax  had  been  reached  the  crowd  would  dis- 
perse, not  to  be  collected  again  for  that  time. 

These  two  agitations,  the  Chartist  and  the  Young  Ire- 
land, constituted  what  may  be  called  our  tribute  to  the 
power  of  the  insurrectionary  spirit  that  was  abroad  over 
Europe  in  1848.  In  almost  every  other  European  State 
revolution  raised  its  head  fiercely,  and  fought  out  its  claims 
in  the  very  capital,  under  the  eyes  of  bewildered  royalty. 
The  whole  of  Italy,  from  the  Alps  to  the  Straits  of  Messina, 
and  from  Venice  to  Genoa,  was  thrown  into  convulsion. 
"Our  Italy"  once  again  "  shone  o'er  with  civil  swords." 
There  was  insurrection  in  Berlin  and  in  Vienna.  The 
Emperor  had  to  fly  from  the  latter  city  as  the  Pope  had  fled 
from  Rome.  In  Paris  there  came  a  Red  Republican  rising 
against  a  Republic  that  strove  not  to  be  Red,  and  the 
rising  was  crushed  by  Cavaignac  with  a  terrible  strenu- 
ousness  that  made  some  of  the  streets  of  Paris  literally  to 
run  with  blood.  It  was  a  grim  foreshadowing  of  the 
Commune  of  187 1.  Another  remarkable  foreshadowing  of 
Avhat  was  to  come  was  seen  in  the  fact  that  the  Prince 
Louis  Napoleon,  long  an  exile  from  France,  had  been  al- 
lowed to  return  to  it,  and  at  the  close  of  the  year,  in  the 
passion  for  law  and  order  at  any  price  born  of  the  Red 
Republican  excesses,  had  been  elected  President  of  the 


^66  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

French  Republic.     Hungary  was  in  arms;  Spain  was  in 
convulsions;  even  Switzerland  was  not  safe.      Our  con- 
tribution to  this  general  commotion  was  to  be  found  in 
the  demonstration  on  Kennington  Common,  and  the  abor- 
tive attempt  at  a  rising  near  Ballingarry.     There  could 
not  possibly  be  a  truer  tribute  to  the  solid  strength  of  our 
system.     Not  for  one  moment  was  the  political  constitu- 
tion of  England  seriously  endangered.     Not  for  one  hour 
did  the  safety  of  our  great  communities  require  a  call  upon 
the  soldiers  instead  of  upon  the  police.     Not  one  charge 
of  cavalry  was  needed  to  put  down  the  fiercest  outburst  of 
the  rebellious  spirit  in  England.     Not  one  single  execution 
took  place.     The  meaning  of  this  is  clear.     It  is  not  that 
there  were  no  grievances  in  our  system  calling  for  redress. 
It  is  not  that  the  existing  institutions  did  not  bear  heavily 
down  on  many  classes.     It  is  not  that  our  political  or  social 
system  was   so   conspicuously  better   than  that  of  some 
European  countries  which  were  torn  and  ploughed  up  by 
revolution.     To  imagine  that  we  owed  our  freedom  from 
revolution  to  our  freedom  from  serious  grievance,  would 
be  to  misread  altogether  the  lessons  offered  to  our  states- 
men by  that  eventful  year.     We  have  done  the  work  of 
whole  generations  of  Reformers  in  the  interval  between 
this  time  and  that.      We  have  made  peaceful  reforms, 
political,  industrial,  legal,  since  then,  which,  if  not  to  be 
had  otherwise,  would  have  justified  any  appeal  to  revolu- 
tion.    There,  however,  we  touch  upon  the  lesson  of  the 
time.     Our  political  and  constitutional  system  rendered 
an  appeal  to  force  unnecessary  and  superfluous.     No  call 
to  arms  was  needed  to  bring  about  any  reform  that  the 
common  judgment  of  the  country  might  demand.     Other 
peoples  flew  to  arms  because  they  were  driven  by  despair ; 
because  there  was  no  way  in  their  political  constitution 
for  the  influence  of  public  opinion  to  make  itself  justly 
felt;  because  those  who  were  in  power  held  it  by  the  force 
of  bayonets,  and  not  of  public  agreement.     The  results  of 
the  year  were,  on  the  whole,  unfavorable  to  popular  liberty. 


Chartism  and   Young  Ireland.  367 

The  results  of  the  year  that  followed  were  decidedly  re- 
actionary. The  time  had  not  come,  in  1848  or  1849,  for 
Liberal  principles  to  assert  themselves.  Their  "great 
deed,"  to  quote  some  of  the  words  of  our  English  poetess, 
Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  "  was  too  great."  We  in  this 
country  were  saved  alike  from  the  revolution  and  the  re- 
action by  the  universal  recognition  of  the  fact,  among  all 
who  gave  themselves  time  to  think,  that  public  opinion, 
being  the  ultimate  ruling  power,  was  the  only  authority 
to  which  an  appeal  was  needed,  and  that  in  the  end  justice 
would  be  done.  All  but  the  very  wildest  spirits  could 
afford  to  wait ;  and  no  revolutionary  movement  is  really 
dangerous  which  is  only  the  work  of  the  wildest  spirits. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


DON    PACIFICO. 


The  name  of  Don  Pacifico  was  as  familiar  to  the  world 
some  quarter  of  a  century  ago  as  that  of  M.  Jecker  was 
about  the  time  of  the  French  invasion  of  Mexico.  Don 
Pacifico  became  famous  for  a  season  as  the  man  whose 
quarrel  had  nearly  brought  on  a  European  war,  caused  a 
temporary  disturbance  of  good  relations  between  England 
and  France,  split  up  political  parties  in  England  in  a 
manner  hardly  ever  known  before,  and  established  the 
reputation  of  Lord  Palmerston  as  one  of  the  greatest 
Parliamentary  debaters  of  his  time.  Among  the  memor- 
able speeches  delivered  in  the  English  House  of  Commons, 
that  of  Lord  Palmerston  on  the  Don  Pacifico  debate  must 
always  take  a  place.  It  was  not  because  the  subject  of 
the  debate  was  a  great  one,  or  because  there  were  any 
grand  principles  involved.  The  question  originally  in 
dispute  was  unutterably  trivial  and  paltry;  there  was  no 
particular  principle  involved;  it  was  altogether  what  is 
called  in  commercial  litigation  a  question  of  account ;  a 
controversy  about  the  amount  and  time  of  payment  of  a 
doubtful  claim.  Nor  was  the  speech  delivered  by  Lord 
Palmerston  one  of  the  grand  historical  displays  of  oratory 
that,  even  when  the  sound  of  them  is  lost,  send  their 
echoes  to  "roll  from  soul  to  soul."  It  was  not  like  one  of 
Burke's  great  speeches,  or  one  of  Chatham's.  It  was  not 
one  calculated  to  provoke  keen  literary  controversy,  like 
Sheridan's  celebrated  "Begum  speech,"  which  all  con- 
temporaries held  to  be  unrivalled,  but  which  a  later  gen- 
eration assumes  to  have  been  rather  flashy  rhetoric. 
There  are  no  passages  of  splendid  eloquence  in  Palmer- 


Doti  Pacifico.  369 

ston's  Pacifico  speech.  Its  great  merit  was  its  wonderful 
power  as  a  contribution  to  Parliamentary  argument;  as 
a  masterly  appeal  to  the  feelings,  the  prejudices,  and 
the  passions  of  the  House  of  Commons;  as  a  complete 
Parliamentary  victory  over  a  combination  of  the  most 
influential,  eloquent,  and  heterogeneous  opponents. 

Don  Pacifico  was  a  Jew,  a  Portuguese  by  extraction, 
but  a  native  of  Gibraltar,  and  a  British  subject.  His 
house  in  Athens  was  attacked  and  plundered  in  the  open 
day,  on  April  4th,  1847,  by  an  Athenian  mob,  who  were 
headed,  it  was  affirmed,  by  two  sons  of  the  Greek  Minister 
of  War.  The  attack  came  about  in  this  way:  It  had  been 
customary  in  Greek  towns  to  celebrate  Easter  by  burning 
an  effigy  of  Judas  Iscariot.  In  1847  the  police  of  Athens 
were  ordered  to  prevent  this  performance,  and  the  mob, 
disappointed  of  their  favorite  amusement,  ascribed  the 
new  orders  to  the  influence  of  the  Jews.  Don  Pacifico's 
house  happened  to  stand  near  the  spot  where  the  Judas 
was  annually  burnt ;  Don  Pacifico  was  known  to  be  a  Jew, 
and  the  anger  of  the  mob  was  wreaked  upon  him  accord- 
ingly. There  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  attack  was  law- 
less, and  that  the  Greek  authorities  took  no  trouble  to 
protect  Pacifico  against  it.  Don  Pacifico  made  a  claim 
against  the  Greek  Government  for  compensation.  He 
estimated  his  losses,  direct  and  indirect,  at  nearly  thirty- 
two  thousand  pounds  sterling.  Another  claim  was  made 
at  the  same  time  by  another  British  subject,  a  man  of  a 
very  different  stamp  from  Don  Pacifico.  This  was  Mr. 
Finlay,  the  historian  of  Greece.  Mr.  Finlay  had  gone  out 
to  Greece  in  the  enthusiastic  days  of  Byron  and  Cochrane 
and  Church  and  Hastings;  and  he  settled  in  Athens  when 
the  independence  of  Greece  had  been  established.  Some 
of  his  land  had  been  taken  for  the  purpose  of  rounding  off 
the  new  palace  gardens  of  King  Otho;  and  Mr.  Finlay  had 
declined  to  accept  the  terms  offered  by  the  Greek  Govern- 
ment, to  which  other  land-owners  in  the  same  position  as 
himself  had  assented.  Some  stress  was  laid  by  Lord 
Vol.  I. — 24 


yjo  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Palmerston's  antagonists,  in  the  course  of  the  debate,  on 
the  fact  that  Mr.  Finlay  thus  stood  out  apart  from  other 
land-owners  in  Athens.  Mr.  Finlay,  however,  had  a  per- 
fect right  to  stand  out  for  any  price  he  thought  fit.  He 
was  in  the  same  position  as  a  Greek  resident  of  London 
or  Manchester  whose  land  is  taken  for  the  purposes  of  a 
railway  or  other  public  improvement,  and  who  declines 
to  accept  the  amount  of  compensation  tendered  for  it  in 
the  first  instance.  The  peculiarity  of  the  case  was  that 
Mr.  Finlay  was  not  left,  as  the  supposed  Greek  gentleman 
assuredly  would  be,  to  make  good  his  claims  for  himself 
in  the  courts  of  law.  Neither  Don  Pacifico  nor  Mr.  Finlay 
had  appealed  to  the  law  courts  at  all.  But  about  this  time 
our  Foreign  Office  had  had  several  little  complaints  against 
the  Greek  authorities.  We  had  taken  so  considerable  a 
part  in  setting  up  Greece  that  our  ministers  not  unnatur- 
ally thought  Greece  ought  to  show  her  gratitude  by  attend- 
ing a  little  more  closely  to  our  advice.  On  the  other  hand, 
Lord  Palmerston  had  made  up  his  mind  that  there  was 
constant  intrigue  going  on  against  our  interests  among  the 
foreign  diplomatists  in  Athens.  He  was  convinced  that 
France  was  perpetually  plotting  against  us  there,  and  that 
Russia  was  watching  an  opportunity  to  supersede  once  for 
all  our  influence  by  completely  establishing  hers.  Don 
Pacifico's  sheets,  counterpanes,  and  gold  watch  had  the 
advantage  of  being  made  the  subject  of  a  trial  of  strength 
between  England  on  the  one  side  and  France  and  Russia 
on  the  other. 

There  had  been  other  complaints  as  well.  Ionian  sub- 
jects of  her  Majesty  had  sent  in  remonstrances  against 
lawless  or  high-handed  proceedings;  and  a  midshipman 
of  her  Majesty's  shx^^  Fafitdme,  landing  from  a  boat  at  night 
on  the  shore  of  Patras,  had  been  arrested  by  mistake. 
None  of  these  questions  would  seem  at  first  sight  to  wear 
a  very  grave  international  character.  All  they  needed  for 
settlement,  it  might  be  thought,  was  a  little  open  discus- 
sion, and  the  exercise  of  some  good  sense  and  moderation 


Don  Pacifico.  y]\ 

on  both  sides.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  Greek 
authorities  were  lax  and  careless,  and  that  acts  had  been 
done  which  they  could  not  justify.  It  is  only  fair  to  say 
that  they  do  not  appear  to  have  tried  to  justify  some  of 
them ;  but  they  were  of  opinion  that  certain  of  the  claims 
were  absurdly  exaggerated,  and  in  this  belief  they  proved 
to  be  well  sustained.  The  Greeks  were  very  poor,  and 
also  very  dilatory;  and  they  gave  Lord  Palmerston  a 
reasonable  excuse  for  a  little  impatience.  Unluckily  Lord 
Palmerston  became  possessed  with  the  idea  that  the  French 
minister  in  Greece  was  secretly  setting  the  Greek  Govern- 
ment on  to  resist  our  claims;  for  the  Foreign  Oflfice  had 
made  the  claims  ours.  They  had  lumped  up  the  outrages 
on  Ionian  seamen,  the  mistaken  arrest  of  the  midshipman 
(who  had  been  released  with  apologies  the  moment  his 
nationality  and  position  were  discovered),  Mr.  Finlay's 
land,  and  Don  Pacifico's  household  furniture  in  one  claim, 
converted  it  into  a  national  demand,  and  insisted  that 
Greece  must  pay  up  within  a  given  time  or  take  the  con- 
sequences. Greece  hesitated,  and  accordingly  the  British 
fleet  was  ordered  to  the  Piraeus.  It  made  its  appearance 
very  promptly  there,  and  seized  all  the  Greek  vessels 
belonging  to  the  Government  and  to  private  merchants 
that  were  found  within  the  waters. 

The  Greek  Government  appealed  to  France  and  Russia 
as  Powers  joined  with  us  in  the  treaty  to  protect  the  inde- 
pendence of  Greece.  France  and  Russia  were  both  dis- 
posed to  make  bitter  complaint  of  not  having  been  con- 
sulted, in  the  first  instance,  by  the  British  Government; 
nor  was  their  feeling  greatly  softened  by  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  peremptory  reply  that  it  was  all  a  question  between 
England  and  Greece,  with  which  no  other  Power  had  any 
business  to  interfere.  The  Russian  Government  wrote  an 
angry  and,  indeed,  an  offensive  remonstrance.  The  Rus- 
sian Foreign  Minister  spoke  of  "  the  very  painful  impression 
produced  upon  the  mind  of  the  Emperor  by  the  unexpected 
acts  of  violence  which  the   British  authorities  had  just 


j72  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

directed  against  Greece;"  and  asked  if  Great  Britain, 
"  abusing  the  advantages  which  are  afforded  to  her  by  her 
immense  maritime  superiority,"  intended  to  "  disengage 
herself  from  all  obligation,"  and  to  "authorize  all  Great 
Powers,  on  every  fitting  opportunity,  to  recognize  toward 
the  weak  no  other  rule  but  their  own  will,  no  other  right 
but  their  own  physical  strength."  The  French  Govern- 
ment, perhaps  under  the  pressure  of  difficulties  and  uncer- 
tain affairs  at  home,  in  their  unsettled  state  showed  a 
better  temper,  and  intervened  only  in  the  interests  of 
peace  and  good  understanding.  Something  like  a  friendly 
arbitration  was  accepted  from  France,  and  the  French 
Government  sent  a  special  representative  to  Athens  to 
try  to  come  to  terms  with  our  minister  there.  The  diffi- 
culties appeared  likely  to  be  adjusted.  All  the  claims, 
except  those  of  Don  Paciiico,  were  matter  of  easy  settle- 
ment, and  at  first  the  French  commissioner  seemed  even 
willing  to  accept  Don  Pacifico's  stupendous  valuation  of 
his  household  goods.  But  Pacifico  had  introduced  other 
demands  of  a  more  shadowy  character.  He  said  that  he 
had  certain  claims  on  the  Portuguese  Government,  and 
that  the  papers  on  which  these  claims  rested  for  support 
were  destroyed  in  the  sacking  of  his  house,  and  therefore 
he  felt  entitled  to  ask  for  ;^2  6,6i8  as  compensation  on 
that  account  also.  The  French  commissioner  was  a  little 
staggered  at  this  demand,  and  declined  to  accede  to  it 
without  further  consideration;  and  as  our  minister,  Mr. 
Wyse,  did  not  believe  he  had  any  authority  to  abate  any 
of  the  now  national  demand,  the  negotiation  was  for  the 
time  broken  off.  In  the  mean  time,  however,  negotia- 
tions had  still  been  going  on  between  the  English  and 
i'^rench  Governments  in  London,  and  these  had  resulted  in 
a  convention  disposing  of  all  the  disputed  claims.  By  the 
terms  of  this  agreement  a  sum  of  eight  thousand  five 
hundred  pounds  was  to  be  paid  by  the  Greek  Government, 
to  be  divided  among  the  various  claimants;  and  Greece 
was  also  to  pay  whatever  sum  might  be  found  to  be  fairly 


Don  Pacifico.  373 

due  on  account  of  Don  Pacifico's  Portuguese  claims,  after 
these  had  been  investigated  by  arbitrators.  This  would 
seem  a  very  satisfactory  and  honorable  arrangement.  But 
some  demon  of  mischief  appeared  to  have  this  unlucky 
affair  in  charge  from  the  first.  The  two  negotiations  going 
on  in  London  and  Athens  simultaneously  got  in  each 
other's  way.  Instructions  as  to  what  had  been  agreed  to 
in  London  were  not  forwarded  to  Athens  quickly  enough 
"by  the  English  Government,  and  when  the  French  Gov- 
ernment sent  out  to  their  commissioner  the  news  of  the 
convention,  he  found  that  Mr.  Wyse  knew  nothing  about 
the  matter,  and  had  no  authority  which,  as  he  conceived, 
would  have  warranted  him  in  departing  from  the  course 
of  action  he  was  following  out.  Mr.  Wyse,  therefore, 
proceeded  with  his  measures  of  coercion,  and  at  length 
the  Greek  Government  gave  way.  The  convention  having, 
however,  been  made  in  the  mean  time  in  London,  there 
then  arose  a  question  as  to  whether  that  convention  or  the 
terms  extorted  at  Athens  should  be  the  basis  of  arrange- 
ment. Over  this  trumpery  dispute,  which  a  few  words  of 
frank  good  sense  and  good  temper  on  both  sides  would 
have  easily  settled,  a  new  quarrel  seemed  at  one  time 
likely  to  break  out  between  England  and  France.  The 
French  Government  actually  withdrew  their  ambassador, 
M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  from  London ;  and  there  was  for  a 
short  time  a  general  alarm  over  Europe.  But  the  question 
in  dispute  was  really  too  small  and  insignificant  for  any 
two  rational  governments  to  make  it  a  cause  of  serious 
quarrel ;  and  after  a  while  our  Government  gave  way,  and 
agreed  to  an  arrangement  which  was,  in  the  main,  all  that 
France  desired.  When,  after  a  long  lapse  of  time,  the 
arbitrators  came  to  settle  the  claims  of  Don  Pacifico,  it 
was  found  that  he  was  entitled  to  about  one-thirtieth  of 
the  sum  he  had  originally  demanded.  He  had  assessed 
all  his  claims  on  the  same  liberal  and  fanciful  scale  as  that 
which  he  adopted  in  estimating  the  value  of  his  household 
property.     Don  Pacifico,  it  seems,  charged  in  his  bill  one 


574  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

hundred  and  fifty  pounds  sterling  for  a  bedstead,  thirty 
pounds  for  the  sheets  of  the  bed,  twenty-five  pounds  for 
two  coverlets,  and  ten  pounds  for  a  pillow-case.  Cleopatra 
might  have  been  contented  with  bed  furniture  so  luxurious 
as  Don  Pacifico  represented  himself  to  have  in  his  common 
use.  The  jewelry  of  his  wife  and  daughters  he  estimated 
at  two  thousand  pounds.  He  gave  no  vouchers  for  any  of 
these  claims,  saying  that  all  his  papers  had  been  destroyed 
by  the  mob.  It  seemed,  too,  that  he  had  always  lived  in 
a  humble  sort  of  way,  and  was  never  supposed  by  his 
neighbors  to  possess  such  splendor  of  ornament  and  house- 
hold goods. 

While  the  controversy  between  the  English  and  French 
Governments  was  yet  unfinished,  a  Parliamentary  con- 
troversy between  the  former  Government  and  the  Opposi- 
tion in  the  House  of  Lords  was  to  begin.  Lord  Stanley 
proposed  a  resolution  which  was  practically  a  vote  of  cen- 
sure on  the  Government.  The  resolution,  in  fact,  ex- 
pressed the  regret  of  the  House  to  find  that  "various 
claims  against  the  Greek  Government,  doubtful  in  point 
of  justice,  or  exaggerated  in  amount,  have  been  enforced 
by  coercive  measures,  directed  against  the  commerce  and 
people  of  Greece,  and  calculated  to  endanger  the  continu- 
ance of  our  friendly  relations  with  foreign  Powers."  The 
resolution  was  carried,  after  a  debate  of  great  spirit  and 
energy,  by  a  majority  of  thirty-seven.  Lord  Palmerston 
was  not  dismayed.  A  ministry  is  seldom  greatly  troubled 
by  an  adverse  vote  in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  Foreign 
Secretary,  writing  about  the  result  of  the  division  the 
following  day,  merely  said:  "We  were  beaten  last  night 
in  the  Lords  by  a  larger  majority  than  we  had,  up  to  th*? 
last  moment,  expected ;  but  when  we  took  office  we  knew 
that  our  opponents  had  a  larger  pack  in  the  Lords  than 
we  had,  and  that  whenever  the  two  packs  were  to  be  fully 
dealt  out,  theirs  would  show  a  larger  number  than  ours." 
Still,  it  was  necessary  that  something  should  be  done  in 
the  Commons  to  counterbalance  the  stroke  of  the  Lords, 


Don  Pacifico.  375 

and  accordingly  Mr.  Roebuck,  acting  as  an  independent 
member,  although  on  this  occasion  in  harmony  with  the 
Government,  gave  notice  of  a  resolution  which  boldly 
affirmed  that  the  principles  on  which  the  foreign  policy  of 
the  Government  had  been  regulated  were  "  such  as  were 
calculated  to  maintain  the  honor  and  dignity  of  this  coun- 
try, and  in  times  of  unexampled  difficulty  to  preserve 
peace  between  England  and  the  various  nations  of  the 
World."  On  June  24th,  1850,  a  night  memorable  in  Parlia- 
mentary annals  as  the  opening  night  of  the  debate  which 
established  Lord  Palmerston's  position  as  a  great  leader 
of  party,  Mr.  Roebuck  brought  forward  his  resolution. 

A  reader  unaccustomed  to  Parliamentary  tactics  may 
fail  to  observe  the  peculiar  shrewdness  of  the  resolution. 
It  was  framed,  at  least  it  reads  as  if  it  had  been  framed, 
to  accomplish  one  purpose  while  professing  to  serve  an- 
other. It  was  intended,  of  course,  as  a  reply  to  the  censure 
of  the  House  of  Lords.  It  was  to  proclaim  to  the  world 
that  the  Representative  Chamber  had  reversed  the  decision 
of  the  House  of  Peers,  and  acquitted  the  ministry.  But 
what  did  Mr.  Roebuck's  resolution  actually  do?  Did  it 
affirm  that  the  Government  had  acted  rightly  with  regard 
to  Greece?  The  dealings  with  Greece  were  expressly 
censured  by  the  House  of  Lords ;  but  Mr.  Roebuck  pro- 
posed to  affirm  that  the  general  policy  of  the  ministry 
deserved  the  approval  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  was 
well  known  that  there  were  many  men  of  Liberal  opinions 
in  the  House  of  Commons  who  did  not  approve  of  the 
course  pursued  with  regard  to  Greece,  but  who  would  yet 
have  been  very  sorry  to  give  a  vote  which  might  contribute 
to  the  overthrow  of  a  Liberal  Government.  The  resolu- 
tion was  so  framed  as  to  offer  to  all  such  an  opportunity 
of  supporting  the  Government,  and  yet  satisfying  their 
consciences.  For  it  might  be  thus  put  to  them :  "  You 
think  the  Government  were  too  harsh  with  Greece?  Per- 
haps you  are  right.  But  this  resolution  does  not  say  that 
they  were  quite  free  of  blame  in  their  way  of  dealing  witlj 


^76  A  History  of  Ottr  OiV7i  Times. 

Greece.  It  only  says  that  their  policy,  on  the  whole,  has 
been  sound  and  successful;  and  of  course  you  must  admit 
that.  They  may  have  made  a  little  mistake  with  regard 
to  Greece;  but  admitting  that,  do  you  not  still  think  that 
on  the  whole  they  had  done  very  well,  and  much  better 
than  any  Tory  minister  would  be  likely  to  do?  This  is 
all  that  Roebuck's  resolution  asks  you  to  affirm;  and  you 
really  cannot  vote  against  it. " 

A  large  number  of  Liberals  were,  no  doubt,  influenced 
by  this  view  of  the  situation,  and  by  the  framing  of  the 
resolution.  But  there  were  some  who  could  not  be  led 
into  any  approval  of  the  particular  transaction  which  the 
resolution,  if  not  intended  to  cover,  would  certainly  be 
made  to  cover.  There  were  others,  too,  who,  even  on  the 
broader  field  opened  purposely  up  by  the  resolution, 
honestly  believed  that  Lord  Palmerston's  general  policy 
was  an  incessant  violation  of  the  principle  of  non-inter- 
vention, and  was,  therefore,  injurious  to  the  character  and 
the  safety  of  the  country.  In  a  prolonged  and  powerful 
debate  some  of  the  foremost  men  on  both  sides  of  the 
House  opposed  and  denounced  the  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment, for  which,  as  every  one  knew.  Lord  Palmerston  was 
almost  exclusively  responsible.  "  The  allied  troops  who 
led  the  attack,"  says  Mr.  Evelyn  Ashley,  in  his  life  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  "were  English  Protectionists  and  foreign 
Absolutists."  It  is  strange  that  an  able  and  usually  fair- 
minded  man  should  be  led  into  such  absurdity.  Lord 
Palmerston  himself  called  it  "  a  shot  fired  by  a  foreign 
conspiracy,  aided  and  abetted  by  a  domestic  intrigue." 
But  Lord  Palmerston  was  the  minister  personally  assailed, 
and  might  be  excused,  perhaps,  for  believing  at  the 
moment  that  warring  monarchs  were  giving  the  fatal 
wound,  and  that  the  attack  on  him  was  the  work  of  the 
combined  treachery  of  Europe.  A  historian  looking  back 
upon  the  events  after  an  interval  of  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ought  to  be  able  to  take  a  calmer  view  of  things.  Among 
tlie  "  English  Protectionists"  who  took  a  prominent  part 


Don  Pacifico.  yi*) 

in  condemning  the  policy  of  Lord  Palmerston  were  Mr. 
Gladstone,  Mr.  Cobden,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Sir  William 
Molesworth,  and  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert.  In  the  House  of 
Lords,  Lord  Brougham,  Lord  Canning,  and  Lord  Aberdeen 
had  supported  the  resolution  of  Lord  Stanley.  The  truth 
is  that  Lord  Palmerston 's  proceedings  were  fairly  open  to 
difference  of  judgment,  even  on  the  part  of  the  most  de- 
voted Liberals  and  the  most  independent  thinkers.  It  did 
not  need  that  a  man  should  be  a  Protectionist  or  an  Abso- 
lutist to  explain  his  entire  disapproval  of  such  a  course  of 
conduct  as  that  which  had  been  followed  out  with  regard 
to  Greece.  It  seem  to  us  now,  quietly  looking  back  at  the 
whole  story,  hardly  possible  that  a  man  with,  for  example, 
the  temperament  and  the  general  views  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
could  have  approved  of  such  a  policy;  obviously  impossi- 
ble that  a  man  like  Mr.  Cobden  could  have  approved  of  it. 
These  men  simply  followed  their  judgment  and  their  con- 
science. 

The  principal  interest  of  the  debate  now  rests  in  the 
manner  of  Lord  Palmerston 's  defence.  The  speech  was, 
indeed,  a  masterpiece  of  Parliamentary  argument  and 
address.  It  was,  in  part,  a  complete  exposition  and  de- 
fence of  the  whole  course  of  the  foreign  policy  which  the 
noble  speaker  had  directed.  But  although  the  resolution 
treated  only  of  the  general  policy  of  the  Government,  Lord 
Palmerston  did  not  fail  to  make  a  special  defence  of  his 
action  toward  Greece.  He  based  his  vindication  of  this 
particular  chapter  of  this  policy  on  the  ground  which,  of 
all  others,  gave  him  most  advantage  in  addressing  a  Parlia- 
mentary assembly.  He  contended  that  in  all  he  had  done 
he  had  been  actuated  by  the  resolve  that  the  poorest 
claimant  who  bore  the  name  of  an  English  citizen  should 
be  protected  by  the  whole  strength  of  England  against 
the  oppression  of  a  foreign  Government.  His  speech  was 
an  appeal  to  all  the  elementary  emotions  of  manhood  and 
citizenship  and  good-fellowship.  To  vote  against  him 
seemed  to  be  to  declare  that  England  was  unable  or  unwill- 


_578  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ing  to  protect  her  children.  A  man  appeared  to  be  guilty 
of  an  unpatriotic  and  ignoble  act  who  censured  the  minister 
whose  only  error,  if  error  it  were,  was  a  too  proud  and  gen- 
erous resolve  to  make  the  name  of  England  and  the  rights 
of  Englishmen  respected  throughout  the  world.  A  good 
deal  of  ridicule  had  been  heaped,  not  unnaturally,  on 
Don  Pacifico,  his  claims,  his  career,  and  his  costly  bed 
furniture.  Lord  Palmerston  turned  that  very  ridicule 
to  good  account  for  his  own  cause.  He  repelled  with  a 
warmth  of  seemingly  generous  indignation  the  suggestion 
that  because  a  man  was  lowly,  pitiful,  even  ridiculous,  even 
of  doubtful  conduct  in  his  earlier  career,  therefore  he  was 
one  with  whom  a  foreign  Government  was  not  bound  to 
observe  any  principles  of  fair  dealings  at  all.  He  pro- 
tested against  having  serious  things  treated  jocosely ;  as  if 
any  man  in  Parliament  had  ever  treated  serious  things 
more  often  in  a  jocose  spirit.  He  protested  against  hav- 
ing the  House  kept  "  in  a  roar  of  laughter  at  the  pov- 
erty of  one  sufferer,  or  at  the  miserable  habitation  of  an- 
other; at  the  nationality  of  one  man,  or  the  religion  of 
another;  as  if  because  a  man  was  poor  he  might  be  bastin- 
adoed and  tortured  with  impunity,  as  if  a  man  who  was 
born  in  Scotland  might  be  robbed  without  redress,  or 
because  a  man  is  of  the  Jewish  persuasion  he  is  a  fair 
mark  for  any  outrage. "  Lord  Palmerston  had  also  a  great 
advantage  given  to  him  by  the  argument  of  some  of  his 
opponents,  that  whatever  the  laws  of  a  foreign  country,  a 
stranger  has  only  to  abide  by  them,  and  that  a  Government 
claiming  redress  for  any  wrong  done  to  one  of  its  subjects  is 
completely  answered  by  the  statement  that  he  has  suffered 
only  as  inhabitants  of  the  country  themselves  have  suf- 
fered. The  argument  against  Lord  Palmerston  was  pushed 
entirely  too  far  in  this  instance,  and  it  gave  him  one  of 
his  finest  opportunities  for  reply.  It  is  true,  as  a  general 
rule  in  the  intercourse  of  nations,  that  a  stranger  who  goes 
voluntarily  into  a  country  is  expected  to  abide  by  its  laws, 
and  that  his  Government  will  not  protect  him  from  their 


Don  Pacifico.  379 

ordinary  operation  in  every  case  where  it  may  seem  to 
press  hardly  or  even  unfairly  against  him.  But  in  this 
understanding  is  always  involved  a  distinct  assumption 
that  the  laws  of  the  State  are  to  be  such  as  civilization 
would  properly  recognize,  supposing  that  the  State  in 
question  professes  to  be  a  civilized  State.  It  also  dis- 
tinctly assumes  that  the  State  must  be  able  and  willing 
to  enforce  its  own  laws  where  they  are  fairly  invoked  on 
behalf  of  a  foreigner.  If,  for  instance,  a  foreigner  has  a 
just  claim  against  some  continental  Government,  and  that 
Government  will  not  recognize  the  claim,  or,  recognizing 
it,  will  not  satisfy  it,  and  the  Government  of  the  injured 
man  intervenes  and  asks  that  his  claim  shall  be  met — it 
would  never  be  accounted  a  sufficient  answer  to  say  that 
many  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  had  been  treated 
just  in  the  same  way,  and  had  got  no  redress.  If  there 
were  a  law  in  Turkey,  or  any  other  slave-owning  State, 
that  a  man  who  could  not  pay  his  debts  was  liable  to  have 
his  wife  and  daughter  sold  into  slavery,  it  is  certain  that 
no  Government  like  that  of  England  would  hear  of  the 
application  of  such  a  law  to  the  family  of  a  poor  English 
trader  settled  in  Constantinople.  There  is  no  clear  rule 
easy  to  be  laid  down ;  perhaps  there  can  be  no  clear  rule 
on  the  subject  at  all.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  govern- 
ments of  all  civilized  countries  do  exercise  a  certain  pro- 
tectorate over  their  subjects  in  foreign  countries,  and  do 
insist  in  extreme  cases  that  the  laws  of  the  country  shall 
not  be  applied  or  denied  to  them  in  a  manner  which  a  na- 
tive resident  might  think  himself  compelled  to  endure 
without  protest.  It  is  not  even  so  in  the  case  of  manifestly 
harsh  and  barbarous  laws  alone,  or  of  the  denial  of  justice 
in  a  harsh  and  barbarous  way.  The  principle  prevails  even 
in  regard  to  laws  which  are  in  themselves  unexceptionable 
and  necessary.  No  Government,  for  example,  will  allow 
one  of  Its  subjects  living  in  a  foreign  country  to  be  brought 
under  the  law  for  the  levying  of  the  conscription  there, 
and  compelled  to  serve  in  the  army  of  the  foreign  State. 


380  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

All  this  only  shows  that  the  opponents  of  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  made  a  mistake  when  they  endeavored  to  obtain  any 
general  assent  to  the  principle  that  a  minister  does  wrong 
who  asks  for  his  fellow-subjects  at  the  hands  of  a  foreign 
Government  any  better  treatment  than  that  which  the 
Government  in  question  administers,  and  without  revolt, 
to  its  own  people.  Lord  Palmerston  was  not  the  man  to 
lose  so  splendid  an  opportunity.  He  really  made  it  ap- 
pear as  if  the  question  between  him  and  his  opponents 
was  that  of  the  protection  of  Englishmen  abroad ;  as  if  he 
were  anxious  to  look  after  their  lives  and  safety,  while  his 
opponents  were  urging  the  odious  principle  that  when 
once  an  Englishman  put  his  foot  on  a  foreign  shore  his 
own  Government  renounced  all  intent  to  concern  them- 
selves with  any  f^te  that  might  befall  him.  Here  was  a 
new  turn  given  to  the  debate,  a  new  opportunity  afforded 
to  those  who,  while  they  did  not  approve  exactly  of  what 
had  been  done  with  Greece,  were  nevertheless  anxious  to 
support  the  general  principles  of  Lord  Palmerston's  for- 
eign policy.  The  speech  was  a  marvellous  appeal  to  what 
are  called  "  English  interests."  In  a  peroration  of  thrill- 
ing power  Lord  Palmerston  asked  for  the  verdict  of  the 
House  to  decide  "  whether,  as  the  Roman  in  days  of  old 
held  himself  free  from  indignity  when  he  could  say  'Civis 
Romanus  sum, '  so  also  a  British  subject,  in  whatever  land 
he  may  be,  shall  feel  confident  that  the  watchful  eye  and 
the  strong  arm  of  England  will  protect  him  against  injus- 
tice and  wrong." 

When  Lord  Palmerston  closed  his  speech  the  over- 
whelming plaudits  of  the  House  foretold  the  victory  he 
had  won.  It  was,  indeed,  a  masterpiece  of  telling  de- 
fence. The  speech  occupied  some  five  hours  in  delivery. 
It  was  spoken,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  afterward  said,  from  the 
dusk  of  one  day  to  the  dawn  of  the  next.  It  was  spoken 
without  the  help  of  a  single  note.  Lord  Palmerston 
always  wisely  thought  that  in  order  to  have  full  command 
of  such  an  audience  a  man  should,  if  possible,  never  use 


Don  Par  if  CO.  _^8i 

notes.  He  was  quite  conscious  of  his  own  lack  of  the 
higher  gifts  of  imagination  and  emotion  that  make  the 
great  orator;  but  he  knew  also  what  a  splendid  weapon  of 
attack  and  defence  was  his  fluency  and  readiness,  and  he 
was  not  willing  to  weaken  the  effect  of  its  spontaneity  by 
the  interposition  of  a  single  note.  All  this  great  speech, 
therefore,  full  as  it  was  of  minute  details,  names,  dates, 
figures,  references  of  all  kinds,  was  delivered  with  the 
same  facility,  the  same  lack  of  effort,  the  same  absence 
of  any  adventitious  aids  to  memory,  which  characterized 
Palmerston's  ordinary  style  when  he  answered  a  simple 
question.  Nothing  could  be  more  complete  than  Palmer- 
ston's success.  "Civis  Romanus"  settled  the  matter. 
Who  was  in  the  House  of  Commons  so  rude  that  would 
not  be  a  Roman?  Who  was  there  so  lacking  in  patriotic 
spirit  that  would  not  have  his  countrymen  as  good  as  any 
Roman  citizen  of  them  all?  It  was  to  little  purpose  that 
Mr.  Gladstone,  in  a  speech  of  singular  argumentative 
power,  pointed  out  that  "  a  Roman  citizen  was  the  mem- 
ber of  a  privileged  caste,  of  a  victorious  and  conquering 
nation,  of  a  nation  that  held  all  others  bound  down  by  the 
strong  arm  of  power — which  had  one  law  for  him  and 
another  for  the  rest  of  the  world,  which  asserted  in  his 
favor  principles  which  it  denied  to  all  others."  It  was  in 
vain  that  Mr.  Gladstone  asked  whether  Lord  Palmerston 
thought  that  was  the  position  which  it  would  become  a 
civilized  and  Christian  nation  like  England  to  claim  for 
her  citizens.  The  glory  of  being  a  "  civis  Romanus"  was 
far  too  strong  for  any  mere  argument  drawn  from  fact  and 
common-sense  to  combat  against  it.  The  phrase  had  car- 
ried the  day.  When  Mr.  Cockburn,  in  supporting  Lord 
Palmerston's  policy,  quoted  from  classical  authority  to 
show  that  the  Romans  had  always  avenged  any  wrongs 
done  to  their  citizens,  and  cited  the  words,  "  Quot  bella 
majores  nostri  suscepti  erint,  quot  cives  Romani  injuria 
affecti  sunt,  navicularii  retenti,  mercatores  spoliati  esse 
dicerentur,"  the  House  cheered  more  tumultuouely  than 


^Sa  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ever.  In  vain  was  the  calm,  grave,  studiously  moderate 
remonstrance  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who,  while  generously 
declaring  that  Palmerston's  speech  "made  us  all  proud  of 
the  man  who  delivered  it,"  yet  recorded  his  firm  protest 
against  the  style  of  policy  which  Palmerston's  eloquence 
had  endeavored  to  glorify.  The  victory  was  all  with  Pal- 
merston.  He  had,  in  the  words  of  Shakspeare's  Rosalind, 
wrestled  well,  and  overthrown  more  than  his  enemies. 

After  a  debate  of  four  nights,  a  majority  of  forty-  six 
was  given  for  the  resolution.     The  ministry  came  out  not 
only  absolved  but  triumphant.     The  odd  thing  about  the 
whole  proceeding  is  that  the  ministers  in  general  heartily 
disapproved  of  the  sort  of  policy  which  Palmerston  put  so 
energetically  into  action — at  least  they  disapproved,  if  not 
his  principles,  yet  certainly  his  way  of  enforcing  them. 
Before  this  debate  came  on,  Lord  John  Russell  had  made 
up  his  mind  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  remain 
in   office   with    Lord   Palmerston    as   Foreign   Secretary. 
None  the  less,  however,  did  Lord  John   Russell   defend 
the  policy  of  the  Foreign  Office  in  a  speech  which  Pal- 
merston himself  described  as  "  admirable  and  first-rate." 
The  ministers  felt  bound  to  stand  by  the  actions  which 
they  had  not  repudiated  at  the  time  when  they  were  done. 
They  could  not  allow  Lord  Palmerston  to  be  separated 
from  them  in  political  responsibility  when  they  had  not 
separated  themselves  from  moral  responsibility  for  his 
proceedings  in  time.     Therefore  they  had  to  defend  in 
Parliament  what  they  did  not  pretend  to  approve  in  pri- 
vate.    The  theory  of  a  cabinet  always  united  when  at- 
tacked rendered,  doubtless,  such  a  course  of  proceeding 
necessary  in  Parliamentary  tactics.     It  would,  perhaps,  be 
hard  to  make  it  seem  quite  satisfactory  to  the  simple  and 
unsophisticated  mind.     No  part  of  our  duty  calls  on  us  to 
attempt  such  a  task.     It  was  a  famous  victory — we  must 
only  settle  the   question   as  old  Caspar  disposed  of  the 
doubts  about  the  propriety  of  the  praise  given  to  the  Duke 
of  Marlborough  and  "  our  good  Prince  Eugene. "     "  It  is 


Don  Pacijico.  ^S^ 

not  telling  a  lie,"  says  some  one  in  Thackeray ;  "  it  is  only 
voting  with  your  party."  But  Thackeray  had  never  been 
in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Of  many  fine  speeches  made  during  this  brilliant  debate 
we  must  notice  one  in  particular.  It  was  that  of  Mr. 
Cockburn,  then  member  for  Southampton — a  speech  to 
which  allusion  has  already  been  made.  Never  in  our  time 
has  a  reputation  been  more  suddenly,  completely,  and  de- 
servedly made  than  Mr.  Cockburn  won  by  his  brilliant 
display  of  ingenious  argument  and  stirring  words.  The 
manner  of  the  speaker  lent  additional  effect  to  his  clever 
and  captivating  eloquence.  He  had  a  clear,  sweet,  pene- 
trating voice,  a  fluency  that  seemed  so  easy  as  to  make 
listeners  sometimes  fancy  that  it  ought  to  cost  no  effort, 
and  a  grace  of  gestures  such  as  it  must  be  owned  the 
courts  of  law  where  he  had  had  his  training  do  not  often 
teach.  Mr.  Cockburn  defended  the  policy  of  Palmerston 
with  an  effect  only  inferior  co  that  produced  by  Palmer- 
ston's  own  speech,  and  with  a  rhetorical  grace  and  finish 
to  which  Palmerston  made  no  pretension.  In  writing  to 
Lord  Normanby  about  the  debate,  Lord  Palmerston  dis- 
tributed his  praise  to  friends  and  enemies  with  that  gen- 
erous impartiality  which  was  a  fine  part  of  his  character. 
Gladstone's  attack  on  his  policy  he  pronounced  "  a  first- 
rate  performance. "  Peel  and  Disraeli  he  praised  likewise. 
But  "as  to  Cockburn's,"  he  said,  "I  do  not  know  that  I 
ever  in  the  course  of  my  life  heard  a  better  speech  from 
anybody,  without  any  exception."  The  effect  which 
Cockburn's  speech  produced  on  the  House  was  well  de- 
scribed in  the  House  itself  by  one  who  rose  chiefly  for  the 
purpose  of  disputing  the  principles  it  advocated.  Mr.  Cob- 
den  observed  that  when  Mr.  Cockburn  had  concluded  his 
speech,  "  one-half  of  the  Treasury  benches  were  left  empty, 
while  honorable  members  ran  after  one  another,  tumbling 
over  each  other  in  their  haste  to  shake  hands  with  the 
honorable  and  learned  member."  Mr.  Cockburn's  career 
was  safe  from  that  hour.     It  is  needless  to  say  that  he  well 


384  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

upheld  in  after  years  the  reputation  he  won  in  a  night. 
The  brilliant  and  sudden  success  of  the  member  for 
Southampton  was  but  the  fitting  prelude  to  the  abiding 
distinction  won  by  the  Lord  Chief-justice  of  England. 

One  association  of  profound  melancholy  clings  to  that 
great  debate.     The  speech  delivered  by  Sir  Robert  Peel 
was  the  last  that  was  destined  to  come  from  his  lips.     The 
debate  closed  on  the  morning  of  Saturday,  June  29th.     It 
was  nearly  four  o'clock  when  the  division  was  taken,  and 
Peel  left  the  House  as  the  sunlight  was  already  beginning 
to  stream  into  the  corridors  and  lobbies.     He  went  home 
to  rest ;  but  his  sleep  could  not  be  long.     He  had  to  attend 
a  meeting  of  the  Royal  Commissioners  of  the  Great  In- 
dustrial Exhibition  at  twelve,  and  the  meeting  was  im- 
portant.    The  site  of  the  building  had  to  be  decided  upon, 
and  Prince  Albert  and  the  Commissioners  generally  relied 
greatly  on  the  influence  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  to  sustain  them 
against  the  clamorous  objection  out-of-dcors  to  the  choice 
of  a  place  in  Hyde  Park.     Peel  went  to  the  meeting,  and 
undertook  to  assume  the  leading  part  in  defending  the  de- 
cision of  the  Commissioners  before  the  House  of  Commons. 
He  returned  home  for  a  short  time  after  the  meeting,  and 
then  set  out  for  a  ride  in  the  Park.     He  called  at  Bucking- 
ham Palace,  and  wrote  his  name  in  the  Queen's  visiting- 
book.     Then,  as  he  was  riding  up  Constitution  Hill,  he 
stopped  to  talk  to  a  young  lady,  a  friend  of  his,  who  was 
also  riding.     His  horse  suddenly  shied  and  flung  him  off; 
and  Peel  clinging  to  the  bridle,  the  animal  fell  with  its 
knees  on  his  shoulders.     The  injuries  which  he  received 
proved  beyond  all  skill  of  surgery.     He  lingered,   now 
conscious,  now  delirious  with  pain,  for  two  or  three  days; 
and  he  died  about  eleven  o'clock  on  the  night  of  July  2d. 
Most  of  the  members  of  his  family  and  some  of  his  dearest 
old  friends  and  companions  in  political  arms  were  beside 
him  when  he  died.     The  tears  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
in  one   House   of  Parliament,  and  the  eloquence  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  in  the  other,   were  expressions  as  fitting  and 


Don  Pacifico.  385 

adequate  as   might   be   of   the   universal   feeling  of  th« 
nation. 

There  was  no  honor  which  Parliament  and  the  country- 
would  not  willingly  have  paid  to  the  memory  of  Peel. 
Lord  John  Russell  proposed,  with  the  sanction  of  the 
Crown,  that  his  remains  should  be  buried  with  public 
honors.  But  Peel  had  distinctly  declared  in  his  will  that 
he  desired  his  remains  to  lie  beside  those  of  his  father  and 
mother  in  the  family  vault  at  Drayton  Bassett.  All  thaG 
Parliament  and  the  country  could  do,  therefore,  was  to  de- 
cree a  monument  to  him  in  Westminster  Abbey.  The 
offer  of  a  peerage  was  made  to  Lady  Peel,  but,  as  might 
perhaps  have  been  expected,  it  was  declined.  Lady  Peel 
declared  that  her  own  desire  was  to  bear  no  other  name 
than  that  by  which  her  husband  had  been  known.  She 
also  explained  that  the  express  wish  of  her  husband,  re- 
corded in  his  will,  was  that  no  member  of  his  family 
should  accept  any  title  or  other  reward  on  account  of  any 
services  Peel  might  have  rendered  to  his  country.  No 
desire  could  have  been  more  honorable  to  the  statesman 
who  had  formed  and  expressed  it ;  none  certainly  more  in 
keeping  with  all  that  was  known  of  the  severely  unselfish 
and  unostentatious  character  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Yet 
there  were  persons  found  to  misconstrue  his  meaning,  and 
to  discover  offence  to  the  order  of  aristocracy  in  Peel's 
determination.  A  report  went  about  that  the  great  states- 
man's objection  to  the  acceptance  of  a  peerage  by  one  of 
his  family  implied  a  disparagement  of  the  order  of  peers, 
and  was  founded  on  feelings  of  contempt  or  hostility  to 
the  House  of  Lords.  Mr.  Goulburn,  who  was  one  of  Peel's 
executors,  easily  explained  Peel's  meaning,  if  indeed  it 
needed  explanation  to  any  reasonable  mind.  Peel  was 
impressed  with  the  conviction  that  it  was  better  for  a  man 
to  be  the  son  of  his  own  works;  and  he  desired  that  his 
sons,  if  they  were  to  bear  titles  and  distinctions  given  them 
by  the  State,  should  win  them  by  their  own  services  and 
worth,  and  not  simply  put  them  on  as  an  inheritance  from 
Vol.  I.— 25 


386  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

their  father.  As  regards  himself,  it  may  well  be  that  he 
thought  the  name  imder  which  he  had  made  his  reputation 
became  him  better  than  any  new  title.  He  had  not  looked 
for  reward  of  that  kind,  and  might  well  prefer  to  mark  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  specially  value  such  distinctions.  Nor 
would  it  be  any  disparagement  to  the  peerage — a  thing 
which  in  the  case  of  a  man  with  Peel's  opinions  is  utterly 
out  of  the  question — to  think  that  much  of  the  dignity  of 
a  title  depends  on  its  long  descent  and  its  historic  record, 
and  that  a  fire-new,  specially  invented  title  to  a  man  al- 
ready great  is  a  disfigurement,  or  at  least  a  disguise,  rather 
than  an  adornment.  When  titles  were  abolished  during 
the  great  French  Revolution,  Mirabeau  complained  of  be- 
ing called  "  Citizen  Riquetti"  in  the  official  reports  of  the 
Assembly.  "With  your  Riquetti,"  he  said,  angrily,  "you 
have  puzzled  all  Europe  for  days. "  Europe  knew  Count 
Mirabeau,  but  was  for  some  time  bewildered  by  Citizen 
Riquetti.  Sir  Robert  Peel  may  well  have  objected  to  a 
reversal  of  the  process,  and  to  the  bewildering  of  Europe 
by  disguising  a  famous  citizen  in  a  new  peerage. 

"  Peel's  death,"  Lord  Palmerston  wrote  to  his  brother  a 
few  days  after,  putting  the  remark  at  the  close  of  a  long 
letter  about  the  recent  victory  of  the  Government  and  the 
congratulations  he  had  personally  received,  "  is  a  great 
calamity,  and  one  that  seems  to  have  had  no  adequate 
cause.  He  was  a  very  bad  and  awkward  rider,  and  his 
horse  might  have  been  sat  by  any  better  equestrian ;  but 
he  seems  somehow  or  other  to  have  been  entangled  in  the 
bridle,  and  to  have  pulled  the  horse  to  step  or  kneel  upon 
him.  The  injury  to  the  shoulder  was  severe  but  curable; 
that  which  killed  him  was  a  broken  rib  forced  with  great 
violence  inward  into  the  lungs."  The  cause  of  Peel's 
death  would  certainly  not  have  been  adequate,  as  Lord 
Palmerston  put  it,  if  great  men  needed  prodigious  and 
portentous  events  to  bring  about  their  end.  But  the 
stumble  of  a  horse  has  been  found  enough  in  other  in- 
stances too.     Peel  seemed  destined  for  great  things  yet 


^  Don  Pacifico.  ^87 

when  he  died.  He  was  but  in  his  sixty-third  year;  he 
was  some  years  younger  than  Lord  Palmerston,  who  may 
be  said,  without  exaggeration,  to  have  just  achieved  his 
first  great  success.  Many  circumstances  were  pointing  to 
Peel  as  likely  before  long  to  be  summoned  again  to  the 
leadership  in  the  government  of  the  country.  It  is  super- 
fluous to  say  that  his  faculties  as  Parliamentary  orator  or 
statesman  were  not  showing  any  signs  of  decay.  An 
English  public  man  is  not  supposed  to  show  signs  of  de- 
caying faculties  at  sixty-two.  The  shying  horse,  and  per- 
haps the  bad  ridership,  settled  the  question  of  Peel's  career 
between  them.  We  have  already  endeavored  to  estimate 
that  career  and  to  do  justice  to  Peel's  great  qualities.  He 
was  not  a  man  of  original  genius,  but  he  M'as  one  of  the 
best  administrators  of  other  men's  ideas  that  ever  knew 
how  and  when  to  leave  a  party  and  to  serve  a  country. 
He  was  never  tried  by  the  severe  tests  which  tell  whether 
a  man  is  a  statesman  of  the  highest  order.  He  was  never 
tried  as  Cavour,  for  example,  was  tried,  by  conditions 
which  placed  the  national  existence  of  his  country  in 
jeopardy.  He  had  no  such  trials  to  encounter  as  were 
forced  on  Pitt.  He  was  the  minister  of  a  country  always 
peaceful,  safe,  and  prosperous.  But  he  was  called  upon 
at  a  trying  moment  to  take  a  step  on  which  assuredly  much 
of  the  prosperity  of  the  people  and  nearly  all  the  hopes  of 
his  party,  along  with  his  own  personal  reputation,  were 
imperilled.  He  did  not  want  courage  to  take  the  step,  and 
he  had  the  judgment  to  take  it  at  the  right  time.  He  bore 
the  reproaches  of  that  which  had  been  his  party  with 
dignity  and  composure.  He  was  undoubtedly,  as  Lord 
Beaconsfield  calls  him,  a  great  member  of  Parliament; 
but  he  was  surely  also  a  great  minister.  Perhaps  he  only 
needed  a  profounder  trial  at  the  hands  of  fate  to  have 
earned  the  title  of  a  great  man. 

To  the  same  year  belongs  the  close  of  another  remark- 
able career.  On  August  26th,  1850,  Louis  Philippe,  lately 
King  of  the  French,  died  at  Claremont,  the  guest  of  Eng- 


j88  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

land.  Few  men  in  history  had  gone  through  greater  re- 
verses. Son  of  Philippe  Egalite,  brought  up  in  a  sort  of 
blending  of  luxury  and  scholastic  self-denial,  under  the 
contrasting  influence  of  his  father  and  of  his  teacher, 
Madame  de  Genlis,  a  woman  full,  at  least,  of  virtuous  pre- 
cept and  Rousseau-like  profession,  he  showed  great  force 
of  character  during  the  Revolution.  He  still  regarded 
France  as  his  country,  though  she  no  longer  gave  a  throne 
to  any  of  his  family.  He  had  fought  like  a  brave  young 
soldier  at  Valmy  and  Jemappes.  " £ga/it/  Fi/s,"  says 
Carlyle,  speaking  of  the  young  man  at  Valmy — "  Equality 
Junior,  a  light,  gallant  field-officer,  distinguished  himself 
by  intrepidity — it  is  the  same  intrepid  individual  who 
now,  as  Louis  Philippe,  without  the  Equality,  struggles 
under  sad  circumstances  to  be  called  King  of  the  French 
for  a  season."  It  is  he  who,  as  Carlyle  also  describes  it, 
saves  his  sister  with  such  spirit  and  energ}'-,  when  Madame 
de  Genlis,  with  all  her  fine  precepts,  would  have  left  her 
behind  to  whatever  danger.  "  Behold  the  young  Princely 
Brother,  struggling  hitherward,  hastily  calling;  bearing 
the  Princess  in  his  arms.  Hastily  he  has  clutched  the 
poor  young  lady  up,  in  her  very  night-gown,  nothing 
saved  of  her  goods  except  the  watch  from  the  pillow ;  with 
brotherly  despair  he  flings  her  in,  among  the  bandboxes, 
into  Genlis'  chaise,  into  Genlis'  arms.  .  .  .  The  brave 
young  Egalite  has  a  most  wild  morrow  to  look  for ;  but 
now  only  himself  to  carry  through  it."  The  brave  young 
Egalite  had,  indeed,  a  wild  time  before  him.  A  wan- 
derer, an  exile,  a  fugitive,  a  teacher  in  Swiss  and  American 
schools;  bearing  many  and  various  names  as  he  turned 
to  many  callings  and  saw  many  lands,  always,  perhaps, 
keeping  in  mind  that  Danton  had  laid  his  great  hand  upon 
his  head  and  declared  that  the  boy  must  one  day  be  King 
of  France.  Then  in  the  whirligig  of  time  the  opportunity 
that  long  might  have  seemed  impossible  came  round  at 
last;  and  the  soldier,  exile,  college  teacher,  wanderer 
among  American  Indian  tribes,  resident  of  Philadelphia, 


Don  Pacijico.  ^89 

and  of  Bloomingdale  in  the  New  York  suburbs,  is  King  of 
the  French.  Well  had  Carlyle  gauged  his  position,  after 
some  years  of  reign,  when  he  described  him  "  as  struggling 
under  sad  circumstances  to  be  called  King  of  the  French 
for  a  season."  He  ought  to  have  been  a  great  man;  he 
had  had  a  great  training.  All  his  promise  as  a  man  faded 
when  his  seeming  success  began  to  shine.  He  had  ap- 
parently learned  nothing  of  adversity ;  he  was  able  to  learn 
nothing  of  prosperity  and  greatness.  Of  all  men  whom 
his  time  had  tried,  he  ought  best  to  have  known,  one 
might  think,  the  vanity  of  human  schemes,  and  the  futility 
of  trying  to  uphold  thrones  on  false  principles.  He  in- 
trigued for  power  as  if  his  previous  experience  had  taught 
him  that  power  once  obtained  was  inalienable.  He  seemed 
at  one  time  to  have  no  real  faith  in  anything  but  chicane. 
He  made  the  fairest  professions,  and  did  the  meanest, 
falsest  things.  He  talked  to  Queen  Victoria  in  language 
that  might  have  brought  tears  into  a  father's  eyes;  and  he 
Avas  all  the  time  planning  the  detestable  juggle  of  the 
Spanish  marriages.  He  did  not  even  seem  to  retain  the 
courage  of  his  youth.  It  went,  apparently,  with  whatever 
of  true,  unselfish  principle  he  had,  when  he  was  yet  a  young 
soldier  of  the  Republic.  He  was  like  our  own  James  H., 
who  as  a  youth  extorted  the  praise  of  the  great  Turenne 
for  his  bravery,  and  as  a  king  earned  the  scorn  of  the  world 
for  his  pusillanimous  imbecility.  vSome  people  say  that 
there  remained  a  gleam  of  perverted  principle  in  Louis 
Philippe,  which  broke  out  just  at  the  close,  and,  unluckily 
for  him,  exactly  at  the  wrong  time.  It  is  asserted  that  he 
could  have  put  down  the  movement  of  1848  in  the  begin- 
ning with  one  decisive  word.  Certainly  those  who  began 
that  movement  were  as  little  prepared  as  he  for  its  turn- 
ing out  a  revolution.  It  is  generally  assumed  that  he 
halted  and  dallied  and  refused  to  give  the  word  of  com- 
mand out  of  sheer  weakness  of  mind  and  lack  of  courage. 
But  the  assumption,  according  to  some,  is  unjust.  Their 
theory  is  that  Louis  Philippe  at  that  moment  of  crisis  was 


^o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Timei>. 

seized  with  a  conscientious  scruple,  and  believed  that  hav- 
ing been  called  to  power  by  the  choice  of  the  people 

called  to  rule  not  as  King  of  France,  but  as  King  of  the 
French— as  King,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  French  people  so 
long  as  they  chose  to  have  him— he  was  not  authorized  to 
maintain  himself  on  that  throne  by  force.     The  feeling 
would  have  been  just  and  right  if  it  were  certain  that  the 
French  people,   or  any  majority  of   the  French  people, 
really  wished  him  away,  and  were  prepared  to  welcome  a 
republic.     But  it  was  hardly  fair  to  those  who  set  him  on 
the  throne  to  assume  at  once  that  he  was  bound  to  come 
down  from  it  at  the  bidding  of  no  matter  whom,  how  few 
or  how  many,  and  without  in  some  way  trying  conclusions 
to  see  if  it  were  the  voice  of  France  that  summoned  him 
to  descend,  or  only  the  outcry  of  a  moment  and  a  crowd. 
The  scruple,  if  it  existed,  lost  the  throne;  in  which  we  are 
far  from  saying  that  France  suffered  any  great  loss.     We 
are  bound  to  say  that  M.  Thiers,  who  ought  to  have  known, 
does  not  seem  to  have  believed  in  the  operation  of  any 
scruple  of  the  kind,  and  ascribes  the  King's  fall  simply  to 
blundering  and  to  bad  advice.     But  it  would  have  been 
curiously  illustrative  of  the  odd  contradictions  of  human 
nature,  and  especially  curious  as  illustrating  that  one  very 
odd  and  mixed  nature,  if  Louis  Philippe  had  really  felt 
such  a  scruple  and  yielded  to  it.     He  had  carried  out  with 
full  deliberation,  and  in  spite  of  all  remonstrance,  schemes 
which  tore  asunder  human  lives,  blighted  human  happi- 
ness, played  at  dice  with  the  destinies  of  whole  nations, 
and  might  have  involved  all  Europe  in  war,  and  it  does  not 
seem  that  he  ever  felt  one  twinge  of  scruple  or  acknowl- 
edged one  pang  of  remorse.      His  policy  had  been  unutter- 
ably mean  and  selfish  and  deceitful.      His  very  bourgeois 
virtues,  on  which  he  was  so  much  inclined  to  boast  him- 
self, had  been  a  sham;  for  he  had  carried  out  schemes 
which  defied  and  flouted  the  first  principles  of  human 
virtue,  and  made  as  light  of  the  honor  of  woman  as  of  the 
integrity  of  man.     It  would  humor  the  irony  of  fate  if  he 


Don  Pacifico.  391 

had  sacrificed  his  crown  to  a  scruple  which  a  man  of  really- 
high  principle  would  well  have  felt  justified  in  banishing 
from  his  mind.  One  is  reminded  of  the  daughter  of  Mack- 
lin,  the  famous  actor,  who  having  made  her  success  on  the 
stage  by  appearing  constantly  in  pieces  which  compelled 
the  most  liberal  display  of  form  and  limbs  to  all  the  house 
and  all  the  town,  died  of  a  slight  injury  to  her  knee,  which 
she  allowed  to  grow  mortal  rather  than  permit  any  doctor 
to  look  at  the  suffering  place.  In  Louis  Philippe's  case, 
too,  the  scruple  would  show  so  oddly  that  even  the  sacrifice 
it  entailed  could  scarcely  make  us  regard  it  with  respect. 

He  died  in  exile  among  us,  the  clever,  unwise,  grand, 
mean  old  man.  There  was  a  great  deal  about  him  which 
made  him  respected  in  private  life,  and  when  he  had 
nothing  to  do  with  state  intrigues  and  the  foreign  policy 
of  courts.  He  was  much  liked  in  England,  where  for 
many  years  after  his  sons  lived.  But  there  were  English- 
men who  did  not  like  him,  and  did  not  readily  forgive 
him.  One  of  these  was  Lord  Palmerston.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  wrote  to  his  brother  a  few  days  after  the  death  of  Louis 
Philippe,  expressing  his  sentiments  thereupon  with  the 
utmost  directness.  "The  death  of  Louis  Philippe,"  he 
said,  "  delivers  me  from  my  most  artful  and  inveterate 
enemy,  whose  position  gave  him  in  many  ways  the  power 
to  injure  me. "  Louis  Philippe  always  detested  Lord  Palm- 
erston, and,  according  to  Thiers,  was  constantly  saying 
witty  and  spiteful  things  of  the  English  minister,  which 
good-natured  friends  as  constantly  brought  to  Palmerston 's 
ears.  When  Lord  Palmerston  did  not  feel  exac^tly  as  a 
good  Christian  ought  to  have  felt,  he  at  least  never  pre- 
tended to  any  such  feeling.  The  same  letter  contains  im- 
mediately after  a  reference  to  Sir  Robert  Peel.  It,  too, 
is  characteristic.  "  Though  I  am  sorry  for  the  death  of 
Peel  from  personal  regard,  and  because  it  is  no  doubt  a 
great  loss  to  the  country,  yet,  so  far  as  my  own  political 
position  is  concerned,  I  do  not  think  that  he  was  ever  dis- 
posed to  do  me  any  good  turn. "     A  little  while  before, 


^^2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Prince  Albert,  writing  to  his  friend  Baron  Stockmar,  had 
spoken  of  Peel  as  having  somewhat  unduly  favored  Pal- 
merston's  foreign  policy  in  the  great  Pacifico  debate,  or  at 
least  not  having  borne  as  severely  as  he  might  upon  it, 
and  for  a  certainly  not  selfish  reason.  "  He"  (Peel)  "  could 
not  call  the  policy  good,  and  yet  he  did  not  wish  to  damage 
the  ministry,  and  this  solely  because  he  considered  that  a 
Protectionist  ministry  succeeding  them  would  be  danger- 
ous to  the  country,  and  had  quite  determined  not  to  take 
office  himself.  But  would  the  fact  that  his  health  no 
longer  admitted  of  his  doing  so  have  been  sufficient,  as 
time  went  on,  to  make  his  followers  and  friends  bear  with 
patient  resignation  their  own  permanent  exclusion  from 
office?  I  doubt  it."  The  Prince  might  well  doubt  it:  if 
Peel  had  lived,  it  is  all  but  certain  that  he  would  have  had 
to  take  office.  It  is  curious,  however,  to  notice  how  com- 
pletely Prince  Albert  and  Lord  Palmerston  are  at  odds  in 
their  way  of  estimating  Peel's  political  attitude  before  his 
death.  Lord  Palmerston's  quiet  way  of  setting  Peel  down 
as  one  who  would  never  be  disposed  to  do  him  a  good  turn 
IS  characteristic  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Foreign  Sec- 
retary went  in  for  the  game  of  politics.  Palmerston  was 
a  man  of  kindly  instincts  and  genial  temperament.  He 
was  much  loved  by  his  friends.  His  feelings  were  always 
directing  him  toward  a  certain  half-indolent  benevolence. 
But  the  game  of  politics  was  to  him  like  the  hunting-field. 
One  cannot  stop  to  help  a  friend  out  of  a  ditch,  or  to  lament 
over  him  if  he  is  down  and  seriously  injured:  for  the  hour 
the  on!y  thing  is  to  keep  on  one's  way.  In  the  political 
game  Lord  Palmerston  was  playing,  enemies  were  only 
obstacles,  and  it  would  be  absurd  to  pretend  to  be  sorry 
when  they  were  out  of  his  path:  therefore  there  is  no 
affection  of  generous  regret  for  Louis  Philippe.  Political 
rivals,  even  if  private  friends,  are  something  like  obstacles 
too.  Palmerston  is  of  opinion  that  Peel  would  never  be 
disposed  to  do  him  a  good  turn,  and  therefore  indulges  in 
no  sentimental  regret  for  his  death.     He  is  a  loss  to  the 


Don  Pacijico.  393 

country,  no  doubt,  and  personally  one  is  sorry  for  him,  of 
course,  and  all  that:  which  done,  God  take  King  Edward 
to  his  mercy,  and  leave  the  world  for  me  to  bustle  in. 
The  world  certainly  was  more  free  henceforth  for  Lord 
Palmerston's  active  and  unresting  spirit  to  bustle  in. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE    ECCLESIASTICAL    TITLES   BILL. 

The  autumn  of  1850  and  the  greater  part  of  1851  were 
disturbed  by  an  agitation  which  seems  strangely  out  of 
keeping  with  our  present  condition  of  religious  liberty 
and  civilization.  A  struggle  with  the  Papal  Court  might 
appear  to  be  a  practical  impossibility  for  the  England  of 
our  time.  The  mind  has  to  go  back  some  centuries  to  put 
itself  into  what  would  appear  the  proper  framework  for 
such  events.  Legislation  or  even  agitation  against  Papal 
aggression  would  seem  about  as  superfluous  in  our  modern 
English  days,  as  the  use  of  any  of  the  once-popular  charms 
which  were  believed  to  hinder  witches  of  their  will.  The 
story  is  extraordinary,  and  is  in  many  ways  instructive. 

For  some  time  previous  to  1850  there  had  been,  as  we 
have  seen  already,  a  certain  movement  among  some 
scholarly,  mystical  men  in  England  toward  the  Roman 
Church.  We  have  already  shown  how  this  movement  be- 
gan, and  how  little  it  could  fairly  be  said  to  represent  any 
actual  impulse  of  reaction  among  the  English  people.  But 
it  unquestionably  made  a  profound  impression  in  Rome. 
The  court  of  Rome  then  saw  everything  through  the  eyes 
of  ecclesiastics;  and  a  Roman  Catholic  ecclesiastic  not 
well  acqiiainted  with  the  actual  conditions  of  English  life 
might  well  be  excused  if,  when  he  found  that  two  or  three 
great  Englishmen  had  gone  over  to  the  Church,  he  fancied 
that  they  were  but  the  vanguard  of  a  vast  popular  or  na- 
tional movement.  It  is  clear  that  the  court  of  Rome  was 
quite  mistaken  as  to  the  religious  condition  of  England. 
The  most  chimerical  notions  prevailed  in  the  Vatican. 
To  the  eye  of  Papal  enthusiasm  the  whole  English  nation 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  ^95 

was  only  waiting  for  some  word  in  season  to  return  to  the 
spiritual  jurisdiction  of  Rome.  The  Pope  had  not  been 
fortunate  in  many  things.  He  had  been  a  fugitive  from 
his  own  city,  and  had  been  restored  only  by  the  force  of 
French  arms.  He  was  a  thoroughly  good,  pious,  and 
genial  man,  not  seeing  far  into  the  various  ways  of  human 
thought  and  national  character ;  and  to  his  mind  there  was 
nothing  unreasonable  in  the  idea  that  Heaven  might  have 
made  up  for  the  domestic  disasters  of  his  reign  by  making 
him  the  instrument  of  the  conversion  of  England.  No 
better  proof  can  be  given  of  the  manner  in  which  he  and 
his  advisers  misunderstood  the  English  people  than  the 
step  with  which  his  sanguine  zeal  inspired  him.  The 
English  people,  even  while  they  yet  bowed  to  the  spiritual 
supremacy  of  the  Papacy,  were  always  keenly  jealous  of 
any  ecclesiastical  attempt  to  control  the  political  action  or 
restrict  the  national  independence  of  England.  The  his- 
tory of  the  relations  between  England  and  Rome,  for  long 
generations  before  England  had  any  thought  of  renouncing 
the  faith  of  Rome,  might  have  furnished  ample  proof  of 
this  to  any  one  who  gave  himself  the  trouble  to  turn  over 
a  few  pages  of  English  chronicles.  The  Pope  did  not  read 
English,  and  his  advisers  did  not  understand  England. 
Accordingly,  he  took  a  step,  with  the  view  of  encouraging 
and  inviting  England  to  become  converted,  which  was 
calculated  specially  and  instantly  to  defeat  its  own  pur- 
pose. Had  the  great  majority  of  the  English  people  been 
really  drawing  toward  the  verge  of  a  reaction  to  Rome, 
such  an  act  as  that  done  b)''  the  Pope  might  have  startled 
them  back  to  their  old  attitude.  The  assumption  of  Papal 
authority  over  England  only  filled  the  English  people  with 
a  new  determination  to  repudiate  and  resist  every  preten- 
sion at  spiritual  authority  on  the  part  of  the  court  of  Rome. 
The  time  has  so  completely  passed  away,  and  the  sup- 
posed pretensions  have  come  to  so  little,  that  the  most 
zealous  Protestant  can  afford  to  discuss  the  whole  question 
now  with   absolute  impartiality  and   unruffled  calmness. 


396  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Every  one  can  clearly  see  now  that  if  the  Pope  was  mis- 
taken in  the  course  he  took,  and  if  the  nation  in  general 
was  amply  justified  in  resenting  even  a  supposed  attempt 
at  foreign  interference,  the  piece  of  legislation  to  which 
the  occasion  gave  birth  was  not  a  masterpiece  of  states- 
manship, nor  was  the  manner  in  which  it  was  carried 
through  always  creditable  to  the  good-sense  of  Parliament 
and  the  public.  The  Papal  aggression  in  itself  was  per- 
haps a  measure  to  smile  at  rather  than  to  arouse  great 
national  indignation.  It  consisted  in  the  issue  of  a  Papal 
bull,  "given  at  St.  Peter's,  Rome,  under  the  seal  of  the 
fisherman,"  and  directing  the  establishment  in  England 
"  of  a  hierarchy  of  bishops  deriving  their  titles  from  their 
own  sees,  which  we  constitute  by  the  present  letter  in  the 
various  apostolic  districts. "  It  is  a  curious  evidence  of 
the  little  knowledge  of  England's  condition  possessed  by 
the  court  of  Rome  then,  that  although  five-sixths  at  least 
of  the  Catholics  in  England  were  Irish  by  birth  or  extrac- 
tion, the  newly-appointed  bishops  were  all,  or  nearly  all, 
Englishmen  unconnected  with  Ireland. 

An  Englishman  of  the  present  day  would  be  probably 
inclined  to  ask,  on  hearing  the  effect  of  the  bull,  Is  that 
all?  Being  told  that  that  was  all,  he  would  probably  have 
gone  on  to  ask.  What  does  it  matter?  Who  cares  whether 
the  Pope  gives  new  titles  to  his  English  ecclesiastics  or 
not?  What  Protestant  is  even  interested  in  knowing 
whether  a  certain  Catholic  bishop  living  in  England  is 
called  Bishop  of  Mesopotamia,  or  of  Lambeth?  There 
always  were  Catholic  bishops  in  England.  There  were 
Catholic  archbishops.  They  were  free  to  go  and  come;  to 
preach  and  teach  as  they  liked;  to  dress  as  they  liked;  for 
all  that  nineteen  out  of  every  twenty  Englishmen  cared, 
they  might  have  been  also  free  to  call  themselves  what 
they  liked.  Any  Protestant  who  mixed  with  Roman 
Catholics,  or  knew  anything  about  their  usages,  knew 
that  they  were  in  the  habit  of  calling  their  bishops  "my 
lord,"  and  their  archbishops  "your  grace."     He  knew,  of 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  397 

course,  that  they  had  not  the  slightest  legal  right  to  use 
such  high-sounding  titles,  but  this  did  not  trouble  him  in 
the  least.  It  was  only  a  ceremonial  intended  for  Catholics, 
and  it  did  not  give  him  either  offence  or  concern.  Why 
then  should  he  be  expected  to  disturb  his  mind  because 
the  Pope  chose  to  direct  that  the  English  Roman  Catholics 
should  call  a  man  Bishop  of  Liverpool  or  Archbishop  of 
Westminster?  The  Pope  could  not  compel  him  to  call 
them  by  any  such  names  if  he  did  not  think  fit ;  and  unless 
his  attention  had  been  very  earnestly  drawn  to  the  fact,  he 
never,  probably,  would  have  found  out  that  any  new  titles 
had  been  invented  for  the  Catholic  hierarchy  in  England. 
This  was  the  way  in  which  a  great  many  Englishmen 
regarded  the  matter  even  then.  But  it  must  be  owned 
that  there  was  something  about  the  time  and  manner  of 
the  Papal  bull  calculated  to  offend  the  susceptibility  of  a 
great  and  independent  nation.  The  mere  fact  that  a  cer- 
tain movement  toward  Rome  had  been  painfully  visible  in 
the  ranks  of  the  English  Church  itself  was  enough  to  make 
people  sensitive  and  jealous.  The  plain  sense  of  many 
thoroughly  impartial  and  cool-headed  Englishmen  showed 
them  that  the  two  things  were  connected  in  the  mind  of 
the  Pope,  and  that  he  had  issued  his  bull  because  he 
thought  the  time  was  actually  coming  when  he  might  be- 
gin to  take  measures  for  the  spiritual  annexation  of  Eng- 
land. His  pretensions  might  be  of  no  account  in  them- 
selves; but  the  fact  that  he  made  them  in  the  evident 
belief  that  they  were  justified  by  realities,  produced  a  jar- 
ring and  painful  effect  on  the  mind  of  England.  The 
offence  lay  in  the  Pope's  evident  assumption  that  the 
change  he  was  making  was  the  natural  result  of  an  actual 
change  in  the  national  feeling  of  England.  The  anger 
was  not  against  the  giving  of  the  new  titles,  but  against 
the  assumption  of  a  new  right  to  give  titles  representing 
territorial  distinctions  in  this  country.  The  agitation 
that  sprang  up  was  fiercely  heated  by  the  pastoral  letter 
of  the  chief  of  the  new  hierarchy.     The  Pope  had  divided 


^98  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times*  '■ 

England  into  various  dioceses,  which  he  placed  under  the 
control  of  an  archbishop  and  twelve  suffragans;  and  the 
new  archbishop  was  Cardinal  Wiseman.  Under  the  title 
of  Archbishop  of  Westminster  and  Administrator  Apostolic 
of  the  Diocese  of  Southwark,  Cardinal  Wiseman  was  now 
to  reside  in  London.  Cardinal  Wiseman  was  already  well 
known  in  England.  He  was  of  English  descent  on  his 
father's  side,  and  of  Irish  on  his  mother's;  he  was  a  Span- 
iard by  birth  and  a  Roman  by  education.  His  family  on 
both  sides  was  of  good  position ;  his  father  came  of  a  long 
line  of  Essex  gentry.  Wiseman  had  held  the  professorship 
of  Oriental  languages  in  the  English  College  at  Rome,  and 
afterward  became  rector  of  the  college.  In  1840  he  was 
appointed  by  the  Pope  one  of  the  Vicars  Apostolic  in  Eng- 
land, and  held  his  position  here  as  Bishop  of  Melipotamus 
ill  partibus  infiddium.  He  was  well  known  to  be  a  fine 
scholar,  an  accomplished  linguist,  and  a  powerful  preacher 
and  controversialist.  But  he  was  believed  also  to  be  a 
man  of  great  ecclesiastical  ambition — ambition  for  his 
Church,  that  is  to  say — of  singular  boldness,  and  of  much 
political  ability.  The  Pope's  action  was  set  down  as  in 
great  measure  the  work  of  Wiseman.  The  Cardinal  him- 
self was  accepted  in  the  minds  of  most  Englishmen  as  a 
type  of  the  regular  Italian  ecclesiastic — bold,  clever,  am- 
bitious, and  unscrupulous.  The  very  fact  of  his  English 
extraction  only  militated  the  more  against  him  in  the 
public  feeling.  He  was  regarded  as  in  some  sense  one 
who  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy,  and  who  was  the  more 
to  be  dreaded  because  of  the  knowledge  he  carried  with 
him.  Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  the  existing 
mood  of  the  English  people  the  very  title  of  Cardinal  ex- 
asperated the  feeling  against  Wiseman.  Had  he  come  as 
a  simple  archbishop,  the  aggression  might  not  have  seemed 
so  marked.  The  title  of  Cardinal  brought  back  unwel- 
come memories  to  the  English  public.  It  reminded  them 
of  a  period  of  their  history  when  the  forces  of  Rome  and 
those  of  the  national  independence  were  really  arrayed 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  399 

against  each  other  in  a  struggle  which  Englishmen  might 
justly  look  on  as  dangerous.  Since  those  times  there  had 
been  no  cardinal  in  England.  Did  it  not  look  ominous 
that  a  cardinal  should  present  himself  now?  The  first 
step  taken  by  Cardinal  Wiseman  did  not  tend  to  charm 
away  this  feeling.  He  issued  a  pastoral  letter,  addressed 
to  England,  on  October  7th,  1850,  which  was  set  forth  as 
"given  out  of  the  Flaminiau  Gate  of  Rome."  This  de- 
scription of  the  letter  was  afterward  stated  to  be  in  accord- 
ance with  one  of  the  necessary  formularies  of  the  Church 
of  Rome ;  but  it  was  then  assumed  in  England  to  be  an 
expression  of  insolence  and  audacity  intended  to  remind 
the  English  people  that  from  out  of  Rome  itself  came  the 
assertion  of  supremacy  over  them.  This  letter  was  to  be 
read  publicly  in  all  the  Roman  Catholic  churches  in  Lon- 
don. It  addressed  itself  directly  to  the  English  people, 
and  it  announced  that  "your  beloved  country  has  received 
a  place  among  the  fair  churches  which,  normally  con- 
stituted, form  the  splendid  aggregate  of  Catholic  com- 
munion ;  Catholic  England  has  been  restored  to  its  orbit 
in  the  ecclesiastical  firmament  from  which  its  light  had 
long  vanished ;  and  begins  now  anew  its  course  of  regu- 
larly adjusted  action  round  the  centre  of  unity,  the  source 
of  jurisdiction,  of  light,  and  of  vigor." 

It  must  be  allowed  that  this  was  rather  imprudent  lan- 
guage to  address  to  a  people  peculiarly  proud  of  being  Prot- 
estant; a  people  of  whom  their  critics  say,  not  wholly 
without  reason,  that  they  are  somewhat  narrow  and  un- 
sympathetic in  their  Protestantism;  that  their  national 
tendency  is  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  nothing  really 
good  outside  the  limits  of  Protestantism.  In  England  the 
National  Church  is  a  symbol  of  victory  over  foreign  ene- 
mies and  domination  at  home.  It  was  not  likely  that  the 
English  people  could  regard  it  as  anything  but  an  offence 
to  be  told  that  they  were  resuming  their  place  as  a  part  of 
an  ecclesiastical  system  to  which  they,  of  all  peoples, 
looked  with  dislike  and  distrust.     We  are  not  saying  that 


400  A  History  of  Our  Ozvn  Times. 

the  feeling  with  which  the  great  bulk  of  the  English  peo- 
ple regarded  Cardinal  Wiseman's  Church  was  just  or  lib- 
eral. We  are  simply  recording  the  unquestionable  his- 
torical fact  that  such  was  the  manner  in  which  the  Eng- 
lish people  regarded  the  Roman  Church,  in  order  to  show 
how  slender  was  the  probability  of  their  being  moved  to 
anything  but  anger  by  such  expressions  as  those  contained 
in  Cardinal  Wiseman's  letter.  But  the  letter  had  hardly 
reached  England  when  the  country  was  aroused  by  another 
letter  coming  from  a  very  different  quarter,  and  intended 
as  a  counterblast  to  the  Papal  assumption  of  authority. 
This  was  Lord  John  Russell's  famous  Durham  letter. 
Russell  had  the  art  of  writing  letters  that  exploded  like 
bomb-shells  in  the  midst  of  some  controversy.  His  Edin- 
burgh letter  had  set  the  cabinet  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  on  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  something  must  be  done  with  the 
Free-trade  question;  and  now  his  Durham  letter  spoke 
the  word  that  let  loose  a  very  torrent  of  English  public 
feeling.  The  letter  was  in  reply  to  one  from  the  Bishop  of 
Durham,  and  was  dated  "  Downing  Street,  November  the 
4th."  Lord  John  Russell  condemned  in  the  most  un- 
measured terms  the  assumption  of  the  Pope  as  "  a  preten- 
sion of  supremacy  over  the  realm  of  England,  and  a  claim 
to  sole  and  undivided  sway,  which  is  inconsistent  with  the 
Queen's  supremacy,  with  the  rights  of  our  bishops  and 
clergy,  and  with  the  spiritual  independence  of  the  nation 
as  asserted  even  in  the  Roman  Catholic  times."  Lord 
John  Russell  went  on  to  say  that  his  alarm  was  by  no 
means  equal  to  his  indignation;  that  the  liberty  of  Protes- 
tantism had  been  enjoyed  too  long  in  England  to  allow  of 
any  successful  attempt  to  impose  a  foreign  yoke  upon 
men's  minds  and  consciences,  and  that  the  laws  of  the 
country  should  be  carefully  examined,  and  the  propriety 
of  adopting  some  additional  measures  deliberately  consid- 
'»«red.  But  Lord  John  Russell  went  farther  than  all  this, 
le  declared  that  there  was  a  danger  that  alarmed  him 
lore  than  any  aggression  from  a  foreign  sovereign,  and 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  401 

that  was  "  the  danger  within  the  gates  from  the  unworthy- 
sons  of  the  Church  of  England  herself."  Clergymen  of 
that  Church,  he  declared,  had  been  "  leading  their  flocks 
step  by  step  to  the  verge  of  the  precipice."  What,  he 
asked,  meant  "  the  honor  paid  to  saints,  the  claim  of  in- 
fallibility for  the  Church,  the  superstitious  use  of  the  sign 
of  the  Cross,  the  muttering  of  the  Liturgy  so  as  to  disguise 
the  language  in  which  it  is  written,  the  recommendation 
of  auricular  confession,  and  the  administration  of  penance 
and  absolution?"  The  letter  closed  with  a  sentence  which 
gave  especial  offence  to  Roman  Catholics,  but  which  Lord 
John  Russell  afterward  explained,  and  indeed  the  context 
ought  to  have  shown,  was  not  meant  as  any  attack  on  their 
religion  or  their  ceremonial :  "  I  have  little  hope  that  the 
propounders  and  framers  of  these  innovations  will  desist 
from  their  insidious  course ;  but  I  rely  with  confidence  on 
the  people  of  England ;  and  I  will  not  bate  one  jot  of  heart 
or  hope  so  long  as  the  glorious  principles  and  the  immortal 
martyrs  of  the  Reformation  shall  be  held  in  reverence  by 
the  great  mass  of  a  nation  which  looks  with  contempt  on 
the  mummeries  of  superstition,  and  with  scorn  at  the  labori- 
ous endeavors  which  are  now  making  to  confine  the  intel- 
lect and  enslave  the  soul."  It  is  now  clear,  from  the  very 
terms  of  this  letter,  that  Lord  John  Russell  meant  to  apply 
these  words  to  the  practices  within  the  English  Church 
which  he  had  so  strongly  condemned  in  the  earlier  pass- 
ages, and  which  alone,  he  said,  he  regarded  with  any  seri- 
ous alarm.  But  the  Roman  Catholics  in  general,  and  the 
majority  of  persons  of  all  sects,  accepted  them  as  a  denun- 
ciation of  "  Popery. "  The  Catholics  looked  upon  them  as 
a  declaration  of  war  against  Catholicism ;  the  fanatical  of 
the  other  side  welcomed  them  as  a  trumpet-call  to  a  new 
"  No  Popery"  agitation. 

The  very  day  after  the  letter  appeared  was  the  Guy 
Faux  anniversary.     All  over  the  country  the  effigies  of  the 
Pope  and  Cardinal  Wiseman  took  the  place  of  the  regula- 
tion "Guy,"  and  were  paraded  and  burnt  amid  tumultu- 
Vol.  I.— 26 


402  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ous  demonstrations.  A  colossal  procession  of  "  Guys" 
passed  down  Fleet  Street,  the  principal  figure  of  which, 
a  gigantic  form  of  sixteen  feet  high,  seated  in  a  chariot, 
had  to  be  bent  down,  compelled  to  "veil  his  crest,"  in 
order  to  pass  under  Temple  Bar.  This  Titanic  "  Guy" 
was  the  new  Cardinal  in  his  red  robes.  In  Exeter  a  yet 
more  elaborate  Anti- Papal  demonstration  was  made.  A 
procession  of  two  hundred  persons  in  character-dresses 
marched  round  the  venerable  cathedral  amid  the  varied 
effulgence  of  colored  lights.  The  procession  represented 
the  Pope,  the  new  Cardinal,  and  the  Inquisition,  various 
of  the  Inquisitors  brandishing  instruments  of  torture. 
Considerable  sums  of  money  were  spent  on  these  popular 
demonstrations,  the  only  interest  in  which  now  is  that  they 
serve  to  illustrate  the  public  sentiment  of  the  hour.  Mr. 
Disraeli  good-naturedly  endeavored  at  once  to  foment  the 
prevailing  heat  of  public  temper,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  direct  its  fervor  against  the  ministry  themselves,  by 
declaring  in  a  published  letter  that  he  could  hardly  blame 
the  Pope  for  supposing  himself  at  liberty  to  divide  Eng- 
land into  bishoprics,  seeing  the  encouragement  he  had  got 
from  the  ministers  themselves  by  the  recognition  they  had 
offered  to  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  of  Ireland.  "  The 
fact  is,"  Mr.  Disraeli  said,  "the  whole  question  has  been 
surrendered  and  decided  in  favor  of  the  Pope  by  the  pres- 
ent Government.  The  ministers  who  recognized  the 
pseudo-Archbishop  of  Tuam  as  a  peer  and  a  prelate  can- 
not object  to  the  appointment  of  a  pseudo-Archbishop  of 
Westminster,  even  though  he  be  a  cardinal. "  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  it  was  not  the  existing  Government  that  had 
recognized  the  rank  of  the  Irish  Catholic  prelates.  The 
recognition  had  been  formally  arranged  in  January,  1845, 
by  a  royal  warrant  or  commission  for  carrying  out  the 
Charitable  Bequests  Act,  which  gave  the  Irish  Catholic 
prelates  rank  immediately  after  the  prelates  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  of  the  same  degree.  But  the  letter  of  Mr. 
Disraeli,  like  that  of  Lord  John  Russell,  served  to  inflame 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  40^ 

passions  on  both  sides,  and  to  put  the  country  in  the  worst 
possible  mood  for  any  manner  of  wholesome  legislation. 
Never  during  the  same  generation  had  there  been  such  an 
outburst  of  anger  on  both  sides  of  the  religious  controversy. 
Jt  was  a  curious  incident  in  political  history  that  Lord 
John  Russell,  who  had,  more  than  any  Englishman  then 
living,  been  identified  with  the  principles  of  religious 
liberty,  who  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  Fox,  and  had  for  his 
closest  friend  the  Catholic  poet,  Thomas  Moore,  came  to 
be  regarded  by  Roman  Catholics  as  the  bitterest  enemy  of 
their  creed  and  their  rights  of  worship. 

The  ministr)''  felt  that  something  must  be  done.  They 
could  not  face  Parliament  without  some  piece  of  legisla- 
tion to  satisfy  public  feeling.  Many,  even  among  the 
most  zealous  Protestants,  deeply  regretted  that  Lord  John 
Russell  had  written  anything  on  the  subject.  Not  a  few 
Roman  Catholics  of  position  and  influence  bitterly  la- 
mented the  indiscretion  of  the  Papal  court.  The  mis- 
chief, however,  was  now  fairly  afoot.  The  step  taken  by 
the  Pope  had  set  the  country  aflame.  Every  day  crowded 
and  tumultuous  meetings  were  held  to  denounce  the  action 
of  the  court  of  Rome.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  some- 
thing like  seven  thousand  such  meetings  had  been  held 
throughout  the  kingdom.  Sometimes  the  Roman  Catholic 
party  mustered  strong  at  such  demonstrations,  and  the  re- 
sult was  rioting  and  disturbance.  Addresses  poured  in 
upon  the  Queen  and  the  ministers  calling  for  decided  action 
against  the  assumption  of  Papal  authority.  About  the 
same  time  Father  Gavazzi,  an  Italian  republican  who  had 
been  a  priest,  came  to  London  and  began  a  series  of  lec- 
tures against  the  Papacy.  He  was  a  man  of  great  rhetorical 
power,  with  a  remarkable  command  of  the  eloquence  of 
passion  and  denunciation.  His  lectures  were  at  first  given 
only  in  Italian,  and  therefore  did  not  appeal  to  a  popular 
English  audience.  But  they  were  reported  in  the  papers 
at  much  length,  and  they  contributed  not  a  little  to  swell 
the  tide  of  public  feeling  against  the  Pope  and  the  court 


404  A  History  of  Our  Ozvn  Times. 

of  Rome.  The  new  Lord  Chancellor,  Lord  Truro,  created 
great  applanse  and  tumult  at  the  Lord  Mayor's  dinner  by 
quoting  from  Shakspeare  the  words,  "Under  my  feet  I'll 
stamp  thy  cardinal's  hat,  in  spite  of  Pope  or  dignities  of 
Church."  Charles  Kean,  the  tragedian,  was  interrupted 
by  thundering  peals  of  applause  and  the  rising  of  the  whole 
audience  to  their  feet  when,  as  King  John,  he  proclaimed 
that  "no  Italian  priest  shall  tithe  or  toll  in  our  dominion." 
Long  afterward,  and  when  the  storm  seemed  to  have  wholly 
died  away,  Cardinal  Wiseman,  going  in  a  carriage  through 
the  streets  of  Liverpool  to  deliver  a  lecture  on  a  purely 
literary  subject  to  a  general  audience,  was  pelted  with 
stones  by  a  mob  who  remembered  the  Papal  assumption 
and  the  passions  excited  by  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act. 

The  opening  of  Parliament  came.  The  ministry  had  to 
do  something.  No  ministry  that  ever  held  power  in  Eng- 
land could  have  attempted  to  meet  the  House  of  Commons 
without  some  project  of  a  measure  to  allay  public  excite- 
ment. On  February  4th,  185 1,  the  Queen  in  person  opened 
Parliament.  Her  speech  contained  some  sentences  which 
were  listened  to  with  theprofoundest  interest  because  they 
referred  to  the  question  which  was  agitating  all  England. 
"The  recent  assumption  of  certain  ecclesiastical  titles  con- 
ferred by  a  foreign  Power  has  excited  strong  feelings  in 
this  country;  and  large  bodies  of  my  subjects  have  pre- 
sented addresses  to  me  expressing  attachment  to  the 
Throne,  and  praying  that  such  assumptions  should  be  re- 
sisted. I  have  assured  them  of  my  resolution  to  maintain 
the  rights  of  my  crown  and  the  independence  of  the  nation 
against  all  encroachments,  from  whatever  quarter  they 
may  proceed.  I  have  at  the  same  time  expressed  my 
earnest  desire  and  firm  determination,  under  God's  bless- 
ing, to  maintain  unimpaired  the  religious  liberty  which  is 
so  justly  prized  by  the  people  of  this  country. "  How  little 
of  inclination  to  any  measures  dealing  unfairly  with  Ro- 
man Catholics  was  in  the  mind  of  the  Queen  herself  may 
be  seen  from  a  letter  in  which,  when  the  excitement  was 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  405 

at  its  height,  she  had  expressed  her  opinion  to  her  aunt,  the 
Duchess  of  Gloucester.  "  I  would  never  have  consented 
to  anything  which  breathed  a  spirit  of  intolerance.  Sin- 
cerely Protestant  as  I  always  have  been  and  always  shall 
be,  and  indignant  as  I  am  at  those  who  call  themselves 
Protestants  while  they  are,  in  fact,  quite  the  contrary,  I 
much  regret  the  unchristian  and  intolerant  spirit  exhibited 
by  many  people  at  the  public  meetings.  I  cannot  bear  to 
hear  the  violent  abuse  of  the  Catholic  religion,  which  is 
so  painful  and  so  cruel  toward  the  many  good  and  innocent 
Roman  Catholics.  However,  we  must  hope  and  trust  this 
excitement  will  soon  cease,  and  that  the  wholesome  effect 
of  it  upon  our  own  Church  will  be  lasting." 

"The  Papal  aggression  question,"  Lord  Palmerston 
wrote  to  his  brother  just  before  the  opening  of  Parliament, 
"  will  give  us  some  trouble,  and  give  rise  to  stormy  de- 
bates. Our  difficulty  will  be  to  find  out  a  measure  which 
shall  satisfy  reasonable  Protestants  without  violating  those 
principles  of  liberal  toleration  which  we  are  pledged  to. 
I  think  we  shall  succeed.  The  thing  itself,  in  truth,  is 
little  or  nothing-,  and  does  not  justify  the  irritation. 
What  has  goaded  the  nation  is  the  manner,  insolent  and 
ostentatious,  in  which  it  has  been  done.  .  .  .  We  must 
bring  in  a  measure.  The  country  would  not  be  satisfied 
v/ithout  some  legislative  enactment.  We  shall  make  it  as 
gentle  as  possible.  The  violent  party  will  object  to  it  for 
its  mildness,  and  will  endeavor  to  drive  us  farther."  A 
measure  brought  in  only  because  something-  must  be  done 
to  satisfy  public  opinion  is  not  likely  to  be  a  very  valuable 
piece  of  legislation.  The  ministry  in  this  case  were  em- 
barrassed by  the  fact  that  they  really  did  not  particularly 
want  to  do  anything  except  to  satisfy  public  opinion  for 
the  moment,  and  get  rid  of  all  the  controversy.  They 
were  placed  between  two  galling  fires.  On  the  one  side 
were  the  extreme  Protestants,  to  whom  Palmerston  alluded 
as  violent,  and  who  were  eager  for  severe  measiires 
against  the  Catholics;  and  on  the  other  were  the  Roman 


466  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Catholic  supporters  of  the  ministry,  who  protested  against 
any  legislation  whatever  on  the  subject.  It  would  have 
been  simply  impossible  to  find  any  safe  and  satisfactory 
path  of  compromise  which  all  could  consent  to  walk.  The 
ministry  did  the  best  they  could  to  frame  a  measure  which 
should  seem  to  do  something  and  yet  do  little  or  nothing. 
Two  or  three  days  after  the  meeting  of  Parliament,  Lord 
John  Russell  introduced  his  bill  to  prevent  the  assumption 
by  Roman  Catholics  of  titles  taken  from  any  territory  or 
place  within  the  United  Kingdom.  The  measure  pro- 
posed to  prohibit  the  use  of  all  such  titles  under  penalt}'', 
and  to  render  void  all  acts  done  by  or  bequests  made  to 
persons  under  such  titles.  The  Roman  Catholic  Relief 
Act  imposed  a  penalty  of  one  hundred  pounds  for  every 
assumption  of  a  title  taken  from  an  existing  see.  Lord 
John  Russell  proposed  now  to  extend  the  penalty  to  the 
assumption  of  any  title  whatever  from  any  place  in  the 
United  Kingdom.  The  reception  which  was  given  to 
Lord  John  Russell's  motion  for  leave  to  bring  in  this  bill 
was  not  encouraging.  Usually  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  is 
granted  as  a  matter  of  course.  Some  few  general  obser- 
vations of  extemporaneous  and  guarded  criticism  are  often 
made ;  but  the  common  practice  is  to  offer  no  opposition. 
On  this  occasion,  however,  it  was  at  once  made  manifest 
that  no  measure,  however  "gentle,"  to  use  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  word,  would  be  allowed  to  pass  without  obstinate 
opposition.  Mr.  Roebuck  described  the  bill  as  "  one  of 
the  meanest,  pettiest,  and  most  futile  measures  that  ever 
disgraced  even  bigotry  itself. "  Mr.  Bright  called  it  "  lit- 
tle, paltry  and  miserable — a  mere  sham  to  bolster  up 
Church  ascendency. "  Mr.  Disraeli  declared  that  he  would 
not  oppose  the  introduction  of  the  bill ;  but  he  spoke  of  it 
in  language  of  as  much  contempt  as  Mr.  Roebuck  and  Mr. 
Bright  had  used,  calling  it  a  mere  piece  of  petty  persecu* 
tion.  "Was  it  for  this,"  Mr.  Disraeli  scornfully  asked, 
"that  the  Lord  Chancellor  trampled  on  a  cardinal's  hat 
amid    the    patriotic    acclamations    of    the    metropolitan 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  407 

municipality?"  Sir  Robert  Inglis,  on  the  part  of  the 
more  extreme  Protestants,  objected  to  the  bill  on  the 
ground  that  it  did  not  go  far  enough.  The  debate  on  the 
motion  for  leave  to  bring  in  the  bill  was  renewed  for 
night  after  night,  and  the  fullest  promise  of  an  angry  and 
prolonged  resistance  was  given.  Yet  so  strong  was  the 
feeling  in  favor  of  some  legislation  that  when  the  division 
was  taken,  three  hundred  and  ninety-five  votes  were  given 
for  the  motion  and  only  sixty-three  against  it.  The  oppo- 
nents of  the  measure  had  on  their  side  not  only  all  the 
prominent  champions  of  religious  liberty,  like  Sir  James 
Graham,  Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Cobden,  and  Mr.  Bright,  but 
also  Protestant  politicians  of  such  devotion  to  the  interests 
of  the  Church  as  Mr.  Roundell  Palmer,  afterward  Lord 
Selborne,  and  Mr.  Beresford  Hope;  and  of  course  they 
had  with  them  all  the  Irish  Catholic  members.  Yet  the 
motion  for  leave  to  bring  in  the  bill  was  carried  by  this 
overwhelming  majority.  The  ministers  had,  at  all  events, 
ample  justification,  so  far  as  Parliamentary  tactics  were 
concerned,  for  the  introduction  of  their  measure. 

If,  however,  we  come  to  regard  the  ministerial  proposal 
as  a  piece  of  practical  legislation,  the  case  to  be  made  out 
for  them  is  not  strong,  nor  is  the  abortive  result  of  their 
efforts  at  all  surprising.  They  set  out  on  the  enterprise 
without  any  real  interest  in  it,  or  any  particular  confidence 
in  its  success.  It  is  probable  that  Lord  John  Russell 
alone  of  all  the  ministers  had  any  expectation  of  a  satis- 
factory result  to  come  of  the  piece  of  legislation  they  were 
attempting.  We  have  seen  what  Lord  Palmerston  thought 
on  the  whole  subject.  The  ministers  were,  in  fact,  in  the 
difficulty  of  all  statesmen  who  bring  in  a  measure,  not  be- 
cause they  themselves  are  clear  as  to  its  necessity  or  its 
efficacy,  but  because  they  find  that  something  must  be 
done  to  satisfy  public  feeling,  and  they  do  not  know  of 
anything  better  to  do  at  the  moment.  The  history  of 
the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  was,  therefore,  a  history  of 
blunder,  unlucky  accident,  and  failure  from  the  moment 


4o8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

it  was  brought  in  until  its  ignominious  and  ridicu- 
lous repeal  many  years  after,  and  when  its  absolute 
impotence  had  been  not  merely  demonstrated  but  for- 
gotten. 

The  Government  at  first,  as  we  have  seen,  resolved  to 
impose  a  penalty  on  the  assumption  of  ecclesiastical  titles 
by  Roman  Catholic  prelates  from  places  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  and  to  make  null  and  void  all  acts  done  or  be- 
quests made  in  virtue  of  such  titles.  But  they  found  that 
it  would  be  absolutely  impossible  to  apply  such  legisla- 
tion to  Ireland.  In  th^t  country  a  Catholic  hierarchy  had 
long  been  tolerated,  and  all  the  functions  of  a  regular 
hierarchy  had  been  in  full  and  formal  operation.  To  ap- 
ply the  new  measure  to  Ireland  would  have  been  virtually 
to  repeal  the  Roman  Catholic  Relief  Act  and  restore  the 
penal  laws.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ministers  were  not 
willing  to  make  one  law  against  titles  for  England  and 
another  for  Ireland.  They  were  driven,  therefore,  to  the 
course  of  withdrawing  two  of  the  stringent  clauses  of  the 
bill,  and  leaving  it  little  more  than  a  mere  declaration 
against  the  assumption  of  unlawful  titles.  But  by  doing 
this  they  furnished  stronger  reasons  for  opposition  to  both 
of  the  two  very  different  parties  who  had  hitherto  de- 
nounced their  way  of  dealing  with  the  crisis.  Those  who 
thought  the  bill  did  not  go  far  enough  before  were,  of 
course,  indignant  at  the  proposal  to  shear  it  of  whatever 
little  force  it  had  originally  possessed.  They,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  had  opposed  it  as  a  breach  of  the  principle  of 
religious  liberty  could  now  ridicule  it  with  all  the  greater 
effect,  on  the  ground  that  it  violated  a  principle  without 
even  the  pretext  of  doing  any  practical  good  as  a  compen- 
sation. In  the  first  instance,  the  ministry  might  plead 
that  the  crisis  was  exceptional ;  that  it  called  for  excep- 
tional measures;  that  something  must  be  done;  and  that 
they  could  not  stand  on  ceremony  even  with  the  principle 
of  religious  liberty  when  the  interest  of  the  State  was  at 
stake.     Now  they  left  it  in  the  power  of  their  opponents 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  409 

to  say  that  they  were  breaking  a  principle  for  the  sake  of 
introducing  a  nonentity. 

The  debates  were  long,  fierce,  and  often  passionate. 
The  bill,  even  cut  down  as  it  was,  had  a  vast  majority  on 
its  side.  But  some  of  the  most  illustrious  names  in  the 
House  of  Commons  were  recorded  against  it;  by  far  the 
most  eloquent  voices  in  the  House  were  raised  to  condemn 
it.  The  Irish  Roman  Catholic  members  set  up  a  persistent 
opposition  to  it,  and  up  to  a  certain  period  of  its  progress 
put  in  requisition  all  the  forms  of  the  House  to  impede  it. 
This  part  of  the  story  ought  not  to  be  passed  over  without 
mention  of  the  fact  that  among  other  effects  produced  by 
the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  perhaps  the  most  distinct 
was  the  creation  of  the  most  worthless  band  of  agitators 
who  ever  pretended  to  speak  with  the  voice  of  Ireland. 
These  were  the  men  who  were  called  in  the  House  "  the 
Pope's  Brass  Band,"  and  who  were  regarded  with  as  much 
dislike  and  distrust  by  all  intelligent  Irish  Catholics  and 
Irish  Nationalists  as  by  the  most  inveterate  Tories.  These 
men  leaped  into  influence  by  their  denunciations  of  the 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  They  were  successful  for  a 
time  in  palming  themselves  off  as  patriots  upon  Irish  con- 
stituencies. They  thundered  against  the  bill,  they  put  in 
motion  every  mechanism  of  delay  and  obstruction ;  some 
of  them  were  really  clever  and  eloquent;  most  of  them 
were  loud-voiced ;  they  had  a  grand  and  heaven-sent  op- 
portunity given  to  them,  and  they  made  use  of  it.  They 
had  a  leader,  the  once  famous  John  Sadleir.  This  man 
possessed  marked  ability,  and  was  further  gifted  with  an 
unscrupulous  audacity  at  least  equal  to  his  ability.  He 
went  to  work  deliberately  to  create  for  himself  a  band  of 
followers  by  whose  help  he  might  mount  to  power.  He 
was  a  financial  swindler  as  well  as  a  political  adventurer. 
By  means  of  the  money  he  had  suddenly  acquired,  and  by 
virtue  of  his  furious  denunciations  of  the  anti-Catholic 
policy  of  the  Government,  he  was,  for  a  time,  able  to  work 
the  Irish  popular  constituencies  so  as  to  get  his  own  fol- 


4IO  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

lowers  into  the  House  and  become  for  the  hour  a  sort  of 
little  O'Connell.  He  had  with  him  some  two  or  three 
honest  men,  whom  he  deluded  into  a  belief  in  the  sin- 
cerity of  himself  and  his  gang  of  swindling  adventurers; 
and  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  by  far  the  most  eloquent 
man  of  the  party  appears  to  have  been  one  of  those  on 
whom  Sadleir  was  thus  able  to  impose.  Mr.  Sadleir's 
band  afterward  came  to  sad  grief.  He  committed  suicide 
himself  to  escape  the  punishment  of  his  frauds ;  some  of 
his  associates  fled  to  foreign  countries  and  hid  themselves 
under  feigned  names.  James  Sadleir,  brother  and  accom- 
plice of  John,  was  among  these,  and  underwent  that  rare 
mark  of  degradation  in  our  days,  a  formal  expulsion  from 
the  House  of  Commons.  The  Pope's  Brass  Band  and  its 
subsequent  history,  culminating  in  the  suicide  on  Hamp- 
stead  Heath,  was  about  the  only  practical  result  of  the 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill. 

The  bill,  reduced  in  stringency  as  has  been  described, 
made,  however,  some  progress  through  the  House.  It 
was  interrupted  at  one  stage  by  events  which  had  nothing 
to  do  with  its  history.  The  Government  got  into  trouble 
of  another  kind.  At  the  opening  of  the  session  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli introduced  a  motion  to  the  effect  that  the  agricultural 
distress  of  the  country  called  upon  the  Government  to  in- 
troduce without  delay  some  measures  for  its  relief.  This 
motion  was,  in  fact,  the  last  spasmodic  cry  of  Protection. 
Many  influential  politicians  still  believed  that  the  cause 
of  Protection  was  not  wholly  lost ;  that  a  reaction  was  pos- 
sible ;  that  the  Free-trade  doctrine  would  prove  a  failure 
and  have  to  be  given  up;  and  they  regarded  Mr.  Disraeli's 
as  a  very  important  motion,  calling  for  a  strenuous  effort 
in  its  favor.  The  Government  treated  the  motion  as  one 
for  restored  Protection,  and  threw  all  their  strength  into 
the  struggle  against  it.  They  won,  but  only  by  a  majority 
of  fourteen.  A  few  days  after,  Mr.  Locke  King,  member 
for  East  Surrey,  asked  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  as- 
similate the  county  franchise  to  that  existing  in  boroughs 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  41! 

Lord  John  Russell  opposed  the  motion,  and  the  Govern- 
ment were  defeated  by  100  votes  against  52.  It  was  evi- 
dent that  this  was  only  what  is  called  a  "  snap"  vote;  that 
the  House  was  taken  by  surprise,  and  that  the  result  in 
no  wise  represented  the  general  feeling  of  Parliament. 
But  still  it  was  a  vexatious  occurrence  for  the  ministry 
already  humiliated  by  the  small  majority  they  had  ob- 
tained on  Disraeli's  motion.  Their  budget  had  already 
been  received  with  very  general  marks  of  dissatisfaction. 
The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  only  proposed  a  partial 
and  qualified  repeal  of  the  window-tax,  an  impost  which 
was  justly  detested,  and  he  continued  the  income-tax. 
The  budget  was  introduced  shortly  before  Mr.  Locke 
King's  motion,  and  every  day  that  had  elapsed  since  its 
introduction  only  more  and  more  developed  the  public 
dissatisfaction  with  which  it  was  regarded.  Under  all 
these  circumstances  Lord  John  Russell  felt  that  he  had 
no  alternative  but  to  tender  his  resignation  to  the  Queen. 
Leaving  his  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  suspended  in  air,  he 
announced  that  he  could  no  longer  think-  of  carrying  on 
the  government  of  the  country. 

The  question  was,  who  should  succeed  him?  The 
Qiieen  sent  for  Lord  Stanley,  afterward  Lord  Derby. 
Lord  Stanley  offered  to  do  his  best  to  form  a  Government, 
but  was  not  at  all  sanguine  about  the  success  of  the  task, 
nor  eager  to  undertake  it.  He  even  recommended  that 
before  he  made  any  experiment  Lord  John  Russell  should 
try  if  he  could  not  do  something  by  getting  some  of  the 
Peelites,  as  they  were  then  beginning  to  be  called — the 
followers  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  who  had  held  with  him  to  the 
last — to  join  him,  and  thus  patch  up  the  Government 
anew.  This  was  tried,  and  failed.  The  Peelites  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  and 
Lord  John  Russell  would  not  go  on  without  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  Lord  Aberdeen,  the  chief  of  the  Peelites  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  would  not  attempt  to  form  a  ministry 
of  his  own,  frankly  acknowledging  that  in  the  existing 


412  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

temper  of  the  country  it  would  be  impossible  for  any  Gov- 
ernment to  get  on  without  legislating  in  some  way  on  the 
Papal  aggression.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  for  Lord 
Stanley  to  try.  He  tried  without  hope,  and  of  course  he 
was  unsuccessful.  The  position  of  parties  was  very  pecu- 
liar. It  was  impossible  to  form  any  combination  which 
could  really  agree  upon  anything.  There  were  three  par- 
ties out  of  which  a  ministry  might  be  formed.  These 
were  the  Whigs,  the  Conservatives,  and  the  Peelites. 
The  Peelites  were  a  very  rising  and  promising  body  of 
men.  Among  them  were  Sir  James  Graham,  Lord  Can- 
ning, Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  Mr.  Cardwell, 
and  some  others  almost  equally  well  known.  Only  these 
three  groups  were  fairly  in  the  competition  for  office ;  for 
the  idea  of  a  ministry  of  Radicals  and  Manchester  men 
was  not  then  likely  to  present  itself  to  any  official  mind. 
But  how  could  any  one  put  together  a  ministry  formed 
from  a  combination  of  these  three?  The  Peelites  would 
not  coalesce  with  the  Tories  because  of  the  Protection 
question,  to  which  Mr.  Disraeli's  motion  had  given  a  new 
semblance  of  vitality,  and  because  of  Lord  Stanley's  own 
declaration  that  he  still  regarded  the  policy  of  Free-trade 
as  only  an  experiment.  The  Peelites  would  not  combine 
with  the  Whigs  because  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill. 
The  Conservatives  would  not  disavow  protective  ideas; 
the  Whigs  would  not  give  up  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Bill.  No  statesman,  therefore,  could  form  a  Government 
without  having  to  count  on  two  great  parties  being  against 
him  on  one  question  or  the  other.  All  manner  of  delays 
took  place.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  was  consulted ;  Lord 
Lansdowne  was  consulted.  The  wit  of  man  could  suggest 
nothing  satisfactory.  The  conditions  for  extracting  any 
satisfactory  solution  did  not  exist.  There  was  nothing 
better  to  be  done  than  to  ask  the  ministers  who  had  re- 
signed to  resume  their  places  and  muddle  on  as  they  best 
could.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  there  was  nothing 
better  to  be  done;    there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done. 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  413 

They  were,  at  all  events,  still  administering  the  affairs 
of  the  country,  and  no  one  would  relieve  them  of  the  task. 
Ipso  facto  they  had  to  stay. 

The  ministers  returned  to  their  places  and  resumed  the 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  It  was  then  that  they  made  the 
change  in  its  conditions  which  has  already  been  mentioned, 
and  thus  created  new  arguments  against  them  on  both  sides 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  They  struck  out  of  the  bill 
every  word  that  might  appear  like  an  encroachment  on 
the  Roman  Church  within  the  sphere  of  its  own  ecclesias- 
tical operations,  and  made  it  simply  an  Act  against  the 
public  and  ostentatious  assumption  of  illegal  titles.  The 
bill  was  wrangled  over  until  the  end  of  June,  and  then  a 
large  number,  some  seventy,  of  the  Irish  Catholic  mem- 
bers publicly  seceded  from  the  discussion,  and  announced 
that  they  would  take  no  further  part  in  the  divisions.  On 
this  some  of  the  strongest  opponents  of  the  Papal  aggres- 
sion, led  by  Sir  Frederick  Thesiger,  afterward  Lord 
Chelmsford,  brought  in  a  series  of  resolutions  intended  to 
make  the  bill  more  stringent  than  it  had  been  even  as 
originally  introduced.  The  object  of  the  resolutions  was 
principally  to  give  the  power  of  prosecuting  and  claiming 
a  penalty  to  anybody,  provided  he  obtained  the  consent  of 
the  law-officers  of  the  Crown,  and  to  make  penal  the  in- 
troduction of  bulls.  The  Government  opposed  the  intro- 
duction of  these  amendments,  and  were  put  in  the  awkward 
position  of  having  to  act  as  antagonists  of  the  party  in  the 
country  who  represented  the  strongest  hostility  to  the 
Papal  aggression.  Thus,  for  the  moment,  the  author  of 
the  Durham  letter  was  seemingly  converted  into  a  cham- 
pion of  the  Roman  Catholic  side  of  the  controversy.  His 
championship  was  ineffective.  The  Irish  members  took 
no  part  in  the  controversy,  and  the  Government  were 
beaten  by  the  ultra-Protestant  party  on  every  division. 
Lord  John  Russell  was  bitterly  taunted  by  various  of  his 
opponents,  and  was  asked  with  indignation  why  he  did  not 
withdraw  the  bill  when  it  ceased  to  be  any  longer  his  own 


414  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

scheme.  He  probably  thought  by  this  time  that  it  really 
made  little  matter  what  bill  was  passed  so  long  as  any  bill 
was  passed,  and  that  the  best  thing  to  do  was  to  get  the 
controversy  out  of  the  way  by  any  process.  He  did  not, 
therefore,  withdraw  the  bill,  although  Sir  Frederick 
Thesiger  carried  all  his  stringent  clauses.  When  the 
measure  came  on  for  a  third  reading,  Lord  John  Russell 
moved  the  omission  of  the  added  clauses,  but  he  was  de- 
feated by  large  majorities.  The  bill  was  done  with  so  far 
as  the  House  of  Commons  was  concerned.  After  an  elo- 
quent and  powerful  protest  from  Mr.  Gladstone  against 
the  measure,  as  one  disparaging  to  the  great  principle  of 
religious  freedom,  the  bill  was  read  a  third  time.  It  went 
up  to  the  House  of  Lords,  was  passed  there  without  alter- 
ation, although  not  without  opposition,  and  soon  after 
received  the  Royal  assent. 

This  was  practically  the  last  the  world  heard  about  it. 
In  the  Roman  Church  everything  went  on  as  before.  The 
new  Cardinal  Archbishop  still  called  himself  Archbishop 
of  Westminster;  some  of  the  Irish  prelates  made  a  point 
of  ostentatiously  using  their  territorial  titles  in  letters 
addressed  to  the  ministers  themselves.  The  bitterness  of 
feeling  which  the  Papal  aggression  and  the  legislation 
against  it  had  called  up  did  not  indeed  pass  away  very 
soon.  It  broke  out  again  and  again,  sometimes  in  the 
form  of  very  serious  riot.  It  turned  away,  at  many  an 
election,  the  eyes  and  minds  of  the  constituencies  from 
questions  of  profound  and  genuine  public  interest  to 
dogmatic  controversy  and  the  hates  of  jarring  sectaries. 
It  furnished  political  capital  for  John  Sadleir  and  his 
band,  and  kept  them  flourishing  for  awhile;  and  it  set  up 
in  the  Irish  popular  mind  a  purely  imaginary  figure  of 
Lord  John  Russell,  who  became  regarded  as  the  malign 
enemy  of  the  Catholic  faith  and  of  all  religious  liberty. 
But,  save  for  the  quarrels  aroused  at  the  time,  the  act  of 
the  Pope  and  the  Act  of  Parliament  were  alike  dead 
letters.     Nothing  came  of  the  Papal  bull.     England  was 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  415 


not  restored  to  the  communion  of  the  Roman  Catholic  | 

Church.     The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  ! 

of  London  retained  their  places  and  their  spiritual  juris-  i 
diction  as  before.     Cardinal  Wiseman  remained  only  a 

prelate   of   Roman   Catholics.     On   the   other   hand,   the  j 

Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act  was  never  put  in  force.     Nobody  | 

troubled  about  it.     Many  years  after,  in  187 1,  it  was  quietly  | 

repealed.     It  died  in  such  obscurity  that  the  outer  public  : 

hardly  knew  whether  it  was  above  ground  or  below.     Cer-  \ 
tainy,  if  the  whole  agitation  showed  that    England  was 

thoroughly  Protestant,  it  also  showed  that  English  Protes-  j 

tants  had  not  much  of  the  persecuting  spirit.     They  had  1 

no  inclination  to  molest  their  Catholic  neighbors,  and  only  \ 

asked  to  be  let  alone.     The  Pope,  they  believed,  had  in-  1 

suited  them ;  they  resented  the  insult ;  that  was  all.  | 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE    EXHIBITION    IN    HYDE    PARK. 

The  first  of  May,  1851,  will  always  be  memorable  as 
the  day  on  which  the  Great  Exhibition  was  opened  in 
Hyde  Park.  The  year  1851,  indeed,  is  generally  associ- 
ated in  the  memory  of  Englishmen  with  that  first  Great 
International  Exhibition.  As  we  look  back  upon  it  pleas- 
ant recollections  come  wp  of  the  great  glass  palace  in  Hyde 
Park,  the  palace  "  upspringing  from  the  verdant  sod," 
which  Thackeray  described  so  gracefully  and  with  so 
much  poetic  feeling.  The  strange  crowds  of  the  curious 
of  all  provinces  and  all  nations  are  seen  again.  The 
marvellous  and  at  that  time  wholly  unprecedented  collec- 
tion of  the  products  of  all  countries;  the  glitter  of  the 
Koh-i-Noor,  the  palm-trees  beneath  the  glass  roof,  the 
leaping  fountains,  the  statuary,  the  ores,  the  ingots,  the 
huge  blocks  of  coal,  the  lace-work,  the  loom-work,  the 
Oriental  stuffs— all  these  made  on  the  mind  of  the  ordin- 
ary inexpert  a  confused  impression  of  lavishness,  and  pro- 
fusion, and  order,  and  fantastic  beauty  which  was  then 
wholly  novel,  and  could  hardly  be  recalled  except  in  mere 
memory.  The  novelty  of  the  experiment  was  that  which 
made  it  specially  memorable.  Many  exhibitions  of  a 
similar  kind  have  taken  place  since.  Some  of  these  far 
surpassed  that  of  Hyde  Park  in  the  splendor  and  variety 
of  the  collections  brought  together.  Two  of  them  at  least 
— those  of  Paris  in  1867  and  1878 — were  infinitely  superior 
in  the  array  and  display  of  the  products,  the  dresses,  the 
inhabitants  of  far-divided  countries.  But  the  impression 
which  the  Hyde  Park  Exhibition  made  upon  the  ordinary 
mind  was  like  that  of  the  boy's  first  visit  to  the  play — an 


The  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park,  417 

impression  never  to  be  equalled,  no  matter  by  what  far 
superior  charm  of  spectacle  it  may  in  after-years  again 
and  again  be  followed. 

Golden,  indeed,  were  the  expectations  with  which  hope- 
ful people  welcomed  the  Exhibition  of  1851.  It  was  the 
first  organized  to  gather  all  the  representatives  of  the 
world's  industry  into  one  great  fair;  and  there  were  those 
who  seriously  expected  that  men  who  had  once  been  pre- 
vailed upon  to  meet  together  in  friendly  and  peaceful 
rivalry  would  never  again  be  persuaded  to  meet  in  rivalry 
of  a  fiercer  kind.  It  seems  extraordinary  now  to  think 
that  any  sane  person  can  have  indulged  in  such  expecta- 
tions, or  can  have  imagined  that  the  tremendous  forces 
generated  by  the  rival  interests,  ambitions,  and  passions 
of  races  could  be  subdued  into  harmonious  co-operation  by 
the  good  sense  and  good  feeling  born  of  a  friendly  meeting. 
The  Hyde  Park  Exhibition,  and  all  the  exhibitions  that 
followed  it,  have  not  as  yet  ntade  the  slightest  perceptible 
difference  in  the  warlike  tendencies  of  nations.  The 
Hyde  Park  Exhibition  was  often  described  as  the  festival 
to  open  the  long  reign  of  Peace.  It  might,  as  a  mere 
matter  of  chronology,  be  called  without  any  impropriety 
the  festival  to  celebrate  the  close  of  the  short  reign  of 
Peace.  From  that  year,  185 1,  it  maybe  said  fairly  enough 
that  the  world  has  hardly  known  a  week  of  peace.  The 
coup  d'efat  in  France  closed  the  year.  The  Crimean  War 
began  almost  immediately  after,  and  was  followed  by  the 
Indian  Mutiny,  and  that  by  the  war  between  France  and 
Austria,  the  long  civil  war  in  the  United  States,  the  Nea- 
politan enterprises  of  Garibaldi,  and  the  Mexican  inter- 
vention, until  we  come  to  the  war  between  Austria, 
Prussia,  and  Denmark;  the  short,  sharp  struggle  for 
German  supremacy  between  Austria  and  Prussia,  the  war 
between  France  and  Germany,  and  the  war  between  Rus- 
sia and  Turkey.  Such  were,  in  brief  summary,  the  events 
that  quickly  followed  the  great  inaugurating  Festival 
of  Peace  in  185 1.  Of  course  those  who  organized  the 
Vol.  I. — 27 


41 8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Great  Exhibition  were  in  no  way  responsible  for  the  exalted 
and  extravagant  expectations  which  were  formed  as  to  its 
effects  on  the  history  of  the  world  and  the  elements  of  hu- 
man nature.  But  there  was  a  great  deal  too  much  of  the 
dithyrambic  about  the  style  in  which  many  writers  and 
speakers  thought  fit  to  describe  the  Exhibition.  With 
some  of  these  all  this  was  the  result  of  genuine  enthusiasm. 
In  other  instances  the  extravagance  was  indulged  in  by 
persons  not  habitually  extravagant,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
very  sober,  methodical,  and  calculating,  who  by  the  very 
fact  of  their  possessing  eminently  these  qualities  were  led 
into  a  total  misconception  of  the  influence  of  such  assem- 
blages of  men.  These  calm  and  wise  persons  assumed 
that  because  they  themselves,  if  shown  that  a  certain 
course  of  conduct  was  for  their  material  and  moral  benefit, 
would  instantly  follow  it  and  keep  to  it,  it  must  therefore 
follow  that  all  peoples  and  states  were  amenable  to  the 
same  excellent  principle  of  self-discipline.  War  is  a  fool- 
ish and  improvident,  not  to  say  immoral  and  atrocious, 
way  of  trying  to  adjust  our  disputes,  they  argued;  let  peo- 
ples far  divided  in  geographical  situation  be  only  brought 
together  and  induced  to  talk  this  over,  and  see  how  much 
more  profitable  and  noble  is  the  rivalry  of  peace  in  trade 
and  commerce,  and  they  will  never  think  of  the  coarse 
and  brutal  arbitrament  of  battle  any  more.  Not  a  few 
others,  it  must  be  owned,  indulged  in  the  high-flown 
glorification  of  the  reign  of  peace  to  come  because  the  Ex- 
hibition was  the  special  enterprise  of  the  Prince  Consort, 
and  they  had  a  natural  aptitude  for  the  production  of 
courtly  strains.  But  among  all  these  classes  of  psean- 
singers  it  did  happen  that  a  good  deal  of  unmerited  dis- 
credit was  cast  upon  the  results  of  the  Great  Exhibition, 
or  the  enterprise  was  held  responsible  for  illusions  it  had 
of  itself  nothing  to  do  with  creating,  and  disappointments 
which  were  no  consequence  of  any  failure  on  its  part. 
Even  upon  trade  and  production  it  is  very  easy  to  exag- 
gerate the  beneficent  influences  of  an  international  exhibi- 


The  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park.  419 

tion.  But  that  such  enterprises  have  some  beneficial  in- 
fluence is  beyond  doubt;  and  that  they  are  interesting, 
instructive,  well  calculated  to  educate  and  refine  the  minds 
of  nations,  may  be  admitted  by  the  least  enthusiastic  of 
men. 

The  first  idea  of  the  Exhibition  was  conceived  by  Prince 
Albert;  and  it  was  his  energy  and  influence  which  suc- 
ceeded in  carrying  the  idea  into  practical  execution. 
Probably  no  influence  less  great  than  that  which  his  sta- 
tion gave  to  the  Prince  would  have  prevailed  to  carry  to 
success  so  difficult  an  enterprise.  There  had  been  indus- 
trial exhibitions  before  on  a  small  scale  and  of  local  limit; 
but  if  the  idea  of  an  exhibition  in  which  all  the  nations  of 
the  world  were  to  compete  had  occurred  to  other  minds 
before,  as  it  may  well  have  done,  it  was  merely  as  a  vague 
thought,  a  day-dream,  without  any  claim  to  a  practical 
realization.  Prince  Albert  was  President  of  the  Society 
of  Arts,  and  this  position  secured  him  a  platform  for  the 
effective  promulgation  of  his  ideas.  On  June  30th,  1849, 
he  called  a  meeting  of  the  Society  of  Arts  at  Buckingham 
Palace.  He  proposed  that  the  Society  should  undertake 
the  initiative  in  the  promotion  of  an  exhibition  of  the 
works  of  all  nations.  The  main  idea  of  Prince  Albert  was 
that  the  exhibition  should  be  divided  into  four  great  sec- 
tions— the  first  to  contain  raw  materials  and  produce;  the 
second,  machinery  for  ordinary  industrial  and  productive 
purposes,  and  mechanical  inventions  of  the  more  ingenious 
kind;  the  third,  manufactured  articles;  and  the  fourth, 
sculpture,  models,  and  the  illustrations  of  the  plastic  arts 
generally.  The  idea  was  at  once  taken  up  by  the  Society 
of  Arts,  and  by  their  agency  spread  abroad.  On  October 
17th  in  the  same  year  a  meeting  of  merchants  and  bankers 
was  held  in  London  to  promote  the  success  of  the  under- 
taking. In  the  first  few  days  of  1850  a  formal  Commission 
was  appointed  "  for  the  promotion  of  the  Exhibition  of  the 
Works  of  All  Nations,  to  be  holden  in  the  year  185 1." 
Prince  Albert  was  appointed  President  of  the  Commission. 


420  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

The  enterprise  was  now  fairly  launched.  A  few  days 
after,  a  meeting  was  held  in  the  Mansion  House  to  raise 
funds  in  aid  of  the  Exhibition,  and  ten  thousand  pounds 
was  at  once  collected.  This,  of  course,  was  but  the  be- 
ginning, and  a  guarantee  fund  of  two  hundred  thousand 
pounds  was  very  soon  obtained. 

On  March  21st,  in  the  same  year,  the  Lord  Mayor  of 
London  gave  a  banquet  at  the  Mansion  House  to  the  chief 
magistrates  of  the  cities,  towns,  and  boroughs  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  for  the  purpose  of  inviting  their  co-operation 
in  support  of  the  undertaking.  Prince  Albert  was  present, 
and  spoke.  He  had  cultivated  the  art  of  speaking  with 
much  success,  and  had  almost  entirely  overcome  whatever 
difficulty  stood  in  his  way  from  his  foreign  birth  and  edu- 
cation. He  never  quite  lost  his  foreign  accent.  No  man 
coming  to  a  new  country  at  the  age  of  manhood  as  Prince 
Albert  did  ever  acquired  the  new  tongue  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  lose  all  trace  of  a  foreign  origin;  and  to  the  end  of 
his  career  Prince  Albert  spoke  with  an  accent  which,  how- 
ever carefully  trained,  still  betrayed  its  early  habitudes. 
But,  except  for  this  slight  blemish.  Prince  Albert  may  be 
said  to  have  acquired  a  perfect  mastery  of  the  English 
language,  and  he  became  a  remarkably  good  public 
speaker.  He  had,  indeed,  nothing  of  the  orator  in  his 
natiire.  It  was  but  the  extravagance  of  courtliness  which 
called  his  polished  and  thoughtful  speeches  oratory.  In 
the  Prince's  nature  there  was  neither  the  passion  nor  the 
poetry  that  are  essential  to  genuine  eloquence ;  nor  were 
the  occasions  on  which  he  addressed  the  English  people 
likely  to  stimulate  a  man  to  eloquence.  But  his  style  of 
speaking  was  clear,  thoughtful,  stately,  and  sometimes 
even  noble.  It  exactly  suited  its  purpose.  It  was  that  of 
a  man  who  did  not  set  up  for  an  orator;  and  who,  when 
he  spoke,  wished  that  his  ideas  rather  than  his  words 
should  impress  his  hearers.  It  is  very  much  to  be  doubted 
whether  the  English  public  would  be  quite  delighted  to 
have  a  prince  who  was  also  a  really  great  orator.     Genuine 


The  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park.  431 

eloquence  would  probably  impress  a  great  many  respect- 
able persons  as  a  gift  not  exactly  suited  to  a  prince.  There 
is  even  still  a  certain  distrust  of  the  artistic  in  the  English 
mind  as  of  a  sort  of  thing  which  is  very  proper  in  profes- 
sional writers  and  painters  and  speakers,  but  which  would 
hardly  become  persons  of  the  highest  station.  Prince 
Albert  probably  spoke  just  as  well  as  he  could  have  done 
with  successful  effect  upon  his  English  audiences.  At  the 
dinner  in  the  Mansion  House  he  spoke  with  great  clear- 
ness and  grace  of  the  purposes  of  the  Great  Exhibition. 
It  was,  he  said,  to  "  give  the  world  a  true  test,  a  living 
picture,  of  the  point  of  industrial  development  at  which 
the  whole  of  mankind  has  arrived,  and  a  new  starting- 
point  from  which  all  nations  will  be  able  to  direct  their 
further  exertions." 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  project  of 
the  Great  Exhibition  advanced  wholly  without  opposition. 
Many  persons  were  disposed  to  sneer  at  it;  many  were 
sceptical  about  its  doing  any  good ;  not  a  few  still  regarded 
Prince  Albert  as  a  foreigner  and  a  pedant,  and  were  slow 
to  believe  that  anything  really  practical  was  likely  to  be 
developed  under  his  impulse  and  protection.  A  very 
Avhimsical  sort  of  opposition  was  raised  in  the  House  of 
Commons  by  a  once  famous  eccentric,  the  late  Colonel 
Sibthorp.  Sibthorp  was  a  man  who  might  have  been 
drawn  by  Smollett.  His  grotesque  gestures,  his  over- 
boiling energy,  his  uncouth  appearance,  his  huge  mustache, 
marked  him  out  as  an  object  of  curiosity  in  any  crowd. 
He  was  the  subject  of  one  of  the  most  amusing  pieces  of 
impromptu  parody  ever  thrown  off  by  a  public  speaker — 
that  in  which  O' Council  travestied  the  famous  lines  about 
the  three  poets  in  three  different  ages  born,  and  pictured 
three  colonels  in  three  different  countries  born,  winding 
up  with:  "The  force  of  Nature  could  no  farther  go;  to 
beard  the  one  she  shaved  the  other  two."  One  of  the  gal- 
lant Sibthorp 's  especial  weaknesses  was  a  distrust  and  de- 
testation of  all  foreigners.     Foreigners  he  lumped  together 


422  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

as  a  race  of  beings  whose  chief  characteristics  were  Popery 
and  immorality.  While  three-fourths  of  the  promoters  of 
the  Exhibition  were  dwelling  with  the  strongest  emphasis 
on  the  benefit  it  would  bring  by  drawing  into  London  the 
representatives  of  all  nations,  Colonel  Sibthorp  was  de- 
nouncing this  agglomeration  of  foreigners  as  the  greatest 
curse  that  could  fall  upon  England.  He  regarded  foreign- 
ers much  as  Isaac  of  York,  in  "Ivanhoe,"  regards  the 
Knights  Templar.  "When,"  asks  Isaac,  in  bitter  remon- 
strance, "  did  Templars  breathe  aught  but  cruelty  to  men 
and  dishonor  to  women?"  Colonel  Sibthorp  kept  asking 
some  such  question  with  regard  to  foreigners  in  general 
and  their  expected  concourse  to  the  Exhibition.  In  lan- 
guage somewhat  too  energetic  and  broad  for  our  more  polite 
time,  he  warned  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  country 
of  the  consequences  to  English  morals  which  must  come  of 
the  influx  of  a  crowd  of  foreigners  at  a  given  season. 
"Take  care,"  he  exclaimed,  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
"of  your  wives  and  daughters;  take  care  of  your  property 
and  your  lives!"  He  declared  that  he  prayed  for  some 
tremendous  hail-storm  or  visitation  of  lightning  to  be  sent 
from  heaven  expressly  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  in 
advance  the  building  destined  for  the  ill-omened  Exhibi- 
tion. When  Free-trade  had  left  nothing  else  needed  to 
complete  the  ruin  of  the  nation,  the  enemy  of  mankind, 
he  declared,  had  inspired  us  with  the  idea  of  the  Great 
Exhibition,  so  that  the  foreigners  who  had  first  robbed  us 
of  our  trade  might  now  be  enabled  to  rob  us  of  our  honor. 
The  objections  raised  to  the  Exhibition  were  not  by  any 
means  confined  to  Colonel  Sibthorp  or  to  his  kind  of  argu- 
ment. After  some  consideration  the  Royal  Commissioners 
had  fixed  upon  Hyde  Park  as  the  best  site  for  the  great 
building,  and  many  energetic  and  some  influential  voices 
were  raised  in  fierce  outcry  against  what  was  called  the 
profanation  of  the  park.  It  was  argued  that  the  public 
use  of  Hyde  Park  would  be  destroyed  by  the  Exhibition ; 
that  the  park  would  be  utterly  spoiled ;  that  its  beauty 


The  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park.  423 

could  never  be  restored.     A  petition  was  presented  by 
Lord  Campbell  to  the  House  of  Lords  against  the  occupa- 
tion of  any  part  of  Hyde  Park  with  the  Exhibition  build- 
ing.    Lord  Brougham  supported   the   petition   with    his 
characteristic  impetuosity  and  vehemence.     He  denounced 
the  Attorney-general   with  indignant  eloquence  because 
that  official  had  declined  to  file  an  application  to  the  Court 
of  Chancery  for  an  injunction  to  stay  any  proceeding  with 
the  proposed  building  in   the  park.      He  denounced  the 
House  of  Lords  itself  for  what  he  considered  its  servile 
deference  to  royalty  in  the  matter  of  the  Exhibition  and 
its  site.     He  declared  that  when  he  endeavored  to  raise 
the  question  there  he  was  received  in  dead  silence ;  and 
he  asserted  that  an  effort  to  bring  on  a  discussion  in  the 
House  of  Commons  was  received  with  a  silence  equally 
profound  and  servile.     Such  facts,  he  shouted,  only  showed 
more  painfully  "  that  absolute  prostration  of  the  under- 
standing which  takes  place  even  in  the  minds  of  the  bravest 
when  the  word  prince  is  mentioned  in  this  country!"     It  is 
probably  true  enough  that  only  the  influence  of  a  prince 
could   have   carried   the   scheme   to   success  against   the 
storms  of  opposition  that  began  to  blow  at  various  periods 
and  from  different  points.     Undoubtedly  a  vast  number, 
probably  the   great  majority,  of  those  who  supported  the 
enterprise  in  the  beginning  did  so  simply  because  it  was 
the  project  of  a  prince.     Their  numbers  and  their  money 
enabled  it  to  be  carried  on,  and  secured  it  the  test  of  the 
world's  examination  and  approval.     In  that  sense  the  very 
servility  which  accepts  with  delight  whatever  a  prince 
proposes  stood  the  Exhibition  in  good  stead.     A  courtier 
may  plead  that  if  English  people  in  general  had  been 
more  independent  and  less  given  to  admiration  of  princes, 
the  excellent  project  devised  by  Prince  Albert  would  never 
have  had  a  fair  trial.     Many  times  during  its  progress  the 
Prince  himself  trembled  for  the  success  of  his  scheme. 
Many  a  time  he  must  have  felt  inclined  to  renounce  it,  or 
at  least  to  regret  that  he  had  ever  taken  it  up. 


424  A  Hisforv  of  Our  Own  Times, 

Absurd  as  the  opposition  to  the  scheme  may  now  seem, 
it  is  certain  that  a  great  many  sensible  persons  thought 
the  moment  singularly  inopportune  for  the  gathering  of 
large  crowds,  and  were  satisfied  that  some  inconvenient, 
if  not  dangerous,  public  demonstration  must  be  provoked. 
The  smouldering  embers  of  Chartism,  they  said,  were 
everywhere  under  society's  feet.  The  crowds  of  foreign- 
ers whom  Colonel  Sibthorp  so  dreaded  would,  calmer  peo- 
ple said,  naturally  include  large  numbers  of  the  "  Reds" 
of  all  Continental  nations,  who  would  be  only  too  glad  to 
coalesce  with  Chartism  and  discontent  of  all  kinds,  for  the 
purpose  of  disturbing  the  peace  of  London.  The  agitation 
caused  by  the  Papal  aggression  was  still  in  full  force  and 
flame.  By  an  odd  coincidence  the  first  column  of  the  Exhi- 
bition building  had  been  set  up  in  Hyde  Park  almost  at 
the  same  moment  with  the  issue  of  the  Papal  bull  estab- 
lishing a  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  in  England.  These 
conditions  looked  gloomy  for  the  project.  "  The  opponents 
of  the  Exhibition,"  wrote  the  Prince  himself,  "work  with 
might  and  main  to  throw  all  the  old  women  here  into  a 
panic  and  to  drive  myself  crazy.  The  strangers,  they  give 
out,  are  certain  to  commence  a  thorough  revolution  here, 
to  murder  Victoria  and  myself,  and  to  proclaim  the  Red 
Republic  in  England;  the  plague  is  certain  to  ensue  from 
the  confluence  of  such  vast  multitudes,  and  to  swallow  up 
those  whom  the  increased  price  of  everything  has  not  al- 
ready swept  away.  For  all  this  I  am  to  be  responsible, 
and  against  all  this  I  have  to  make  efficient  provision." 
Most  of  the  Continental  sovereigns  looked  coldly  on  the 
undertaking.  The  King  of  Prussia  took  such  alarm  at 
the  thought  of  the  Red  Republicans  whom  the  Exhibition 
would  draw  together  that  at  first  he  positively  prohibited 
his  brother,  then  Prince  of  Prussia,  now  German  Emperor, 
from  attending  the  opening  ceremonial ;  and  though  he 
afterward  withdrew  the  prohibition,  he  remained  full  of 
doubts  and  fears  as  to  the  personal  safety  of  any  royal  or 
princely  personage  found  in  Hj^de  Park  on  the  opening 


The  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park.  425 

day.  The  Duke  of  Cambridge,  being  appealed  to  on  the 
subject,  acknowledged  himself  also  full  of  apprehensions. 
The  objections  to  the  site  continued  to  grow  up  to  a  cer- 
tain time.  "The  Exhibition,"  Prince  Albert  wrote  once 
to  Baron  Stockmar,  his  friend  and  adviser,  "  is  now  attacked 
furiously  by  the  Times,  and  the  House  of  Commons  is  go- 
ing to  drive  us  out  of  the  park.  There  is  immense  excite- 
ment on  the  subject.  If  we  are  driven  out  of  the  park  the 
work  is  done  for. "  At  one  time,  indeed,  this  result  seemed 
highly  probable;  but  public  opinion  gradually  underwent 
a  change,  and  the  opposition  to  the  site  was  defeated  in 
the  House  of  Commons  by  a  large  majority. 

Even,  however,  when  the  question  of  the  site  had  been 
disposed  of,  there  remained  immense  difficulties  in  the 
way.  The  press  was  not,  on  the  whole,  very  favorable  to 
the  project;  Punch,  in  particular,  was  hardly  ever  weary 
of  making  fun  of  it.  Such  a  project,  while  yet  only  in 
embryo,  undoubtedly  furnished  many  points  on  which 
satire  could  fasten ;  and  nothing  short  of  complete  success 
could  save  it  from  falling  under  a  mountain  of  ridicule. 
No  half  success  would  have  rescued  it.  The  ridicule 
was  naturally  provoked  and  aggravated  to  an  unspeakable 
degree  by  the  hyperbolical  expectations  and  preposterous 
dithyrambics  of  some  of  the  well-meaning  but  unwise  and 
somewhat  too  obstreperously  loyal  supporters  of  the  enter- 
prise. To  add  to  all  this,  as  the  time  for  the  opening  drew 
near,  some  of  the  foreign  diplomatists  in  London  began 
to  sulk  at  the  whole  project.  There  were  small  points  of 
objection  made  about  the  position  and  functions  of  foreign 
ambassadors  at  the  opening  ceremonial,  and  what  the 
Queen  and  Prince  meant  for  politeness  was,  in  one  instance 
at  least,  near  being  twisted  into  cause  of  offence.  Up  to 
the  last  moment  it  was  not  quite  certain  whether  an  absurd 
diplomatic  quarrel  might  not  have  been  part  of  the  in- 
augural ceremonies  of  the  opening  day. 

The  Prince  did  not  despair,  however,  and  the  project 
went  on.     There  was  a  great  deal  of  difficulty  in  selecting 


426  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

a  plan  for  the  building.  Huge  structures  of  brick-work, 
looking  like  enormous  railway  sheds,  costly  and  hideous 
at  once,  were  proposed ;  it  seemed  almost  certain  that  some 
one  of  them  must  be  chosen.  Happily,  a  sudden  inspira- 
tion struck  Mr.  (afterward  Sir  Joseph)  Paxton,  who  was 
then  in  charge  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  superb  grounds 
at  Chatsworth.  Why  not  try  glass  and  iron?  he  asked  him- 
self. Why  not  build  a  palace  of  glass  and  iron  large 
enough  to  cover  all  the  intended  contents  of  the  Exhibi- 
tion, and  which  should  be  at  once  light,  beautiful,  and 
cheap?  Mr.  Paxton  sketched  out  his  plan  hastily,  and  the 
idea  was  eagerly  accepted  by  the  Royal  Commissioners. 
He  made  many  improvements  afterward  in  his  design; 
but  the  palace  of  glass  and  iron  arose  within  the  specified 
time  on  the  green  turf  of  Hyde  Park.  The  idea  so  happily 
hit  upon  was  serviceable  in  more  ways  than  one  to  the 
success  of  the  Exhibition.  It  made  the  building  itself  as 
much  an  object  of  curiosity  and  wonder  as  the  collections 
under  its  crystal  roof.  Of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  who 
came  to  the  Exhibition,  a  goodly  proportion  were  drawn 
to  Hyde  Park  rather  by  a  wish  to  see  Paxton 's  palace  of 
glass  than  all  the  wonders  of  industrial  and  plastic  art 
that  it  enclosed.  Indeed,  Lord  Palmerston,  writing  to 
Lord  Normanby  on  the  day  after  the  opening  of  the  Ex- 
hibition, said :  "  The  building  itself  is  far  more  worth  see- 
ing than  anything  in  it,  though  many  of  its  contents  are 
worthy  of  admiration."  Perhaps  the  glass  building  was 
like  the  Exhibition  project  itself  in  one  respect.  It  did 
not  bring  about  the  revolution  which  it  was  confidently 
expected  to  create.  Glass  and  iron  have  not  superseded 
brick  and  stone,  any  more  than  competitions  of  peaceful 
industry  have  banished  arbitrament  by  war.  But  the 
building,  like  the  Exhibition  itself,  fulfilled  admirably 
its  more  modest  and  immediate  purpose,  and  was  in  that 
way  a  complete  success.  The  structure  of  glass  is,  indeed, 
in  every  mind  inseparably  associated  with  the  event  and 
the  year. 


^  The  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park.  427 

The  Queen  herself  has  written  a  very  interesting  account 
of  the  success  of  the  opening  day.  Her  description  is  in- 
teresting as  an  expression  of  the  feelings  of  the  writer,  the 
sense  of  profound  relief  and  rapture,  as  well  as  for  the 
sake  of  the  picture  it  gives  of  the  ceremonial  itself.  The 
enthusiasm  of  the  wife  over  the  complete  success  of  the 
project  on  which  her  husband  had  set  his  heart  and  staked 
his  name  is  simple  and  touching.  If  the  importance  of 
the  undertaking  and  the  amount  of  fame  it  was  to  bring 
to  its  author  may  seem  a  little  overdone,  not  many  readers 
will  complain  of  the  womanly  and  wifely  feeling  which 
could  not  be  denied  such  fervent  expression.  "  The  great 
event,"  wrote  the  Queen,  "has  taken  place — a  complete 
and  beautiful  triumph — sl  glorious  and  touching  sight,  one 
which  I  shall  ever  be  proud  of  for  my  beloved  Albert  and 
my  country.  .  .  .  The  park  presented  a  wonderful  spec- 
tacle— crowds  streaming  through  it,  carriages  and  troops 
passing,  quite  like  the  Coronation-day,  and  for  me  the 
same  anxiety — no,  much  greater  anxiety,  on  account  of 
my  beloved  Albert.  The  day  was  bright,  and  all  bustle 
and  excitement.  .  ,  .  The  Green  Park  and  Hyde  Park 
were  one  densely  crowded  mass  of  human  beings,  in  the 
highest  good-humor,  and  most  enthusiastic.  I  never'saw 
Hyde  Park  look  as  it  did — as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach. 
A  little  rain  fell  just  as  we  started,  but  before  we  came 
near  the  Crystal  Palace  the  sun  shone  and  gleamed  upon 
the  gigantic  edifice,  upon  which  the  flags  of  all  nations 
were  floating.  .  .  .  The  glimpse  of  the  transept  through 
the  iron  gates,  the  waving  palms,  flowers,  statues,  myriads 
of  people  filling  the  galleries  and  seats  around,  with  the 
flourish  of  trumpets  as  we  entered,  gave  us  a  sensation 
which  I  can  never  forget,  and  I  felt  much  moved.  .  .  . 
The  sight  as  we  came  to  the  middle  was  magical — so  vast, 
so  glorious,  so  touching — one  felt,  as  so  many  did  whom  I 
have  since  spoken  to,  filled  with  devotion — more  so  than 
by  any  service  I  have  ever  heard.  The  tremendous  cheers, 
the  joy  expressed  in  every  face,   the   immensity  of  the 


428  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

building,  the  mixture  of  palms,  flowers,  trees,  statues, 
fountains;  the  organ  (with  two  hundred  instruments  and 
six  hundred  voices,  which  sounded  like  nothing),  and  my 
beloved  husband  the  author  of  this  peace  festival,  which 
united  the  industry  of  all  nations  of  the  earth — all  this 
was  moving,  indeed,  and  it  was  and  is  a  day  to  live  for- 
ever. God  bless  my  dearest  Albert!  God  bless  my  dear- 
est country,  which  has  shown  itself  so  great  to-day!  One 
felt  so  grateful  to  the  great  God,  who  seemed  to  pervade 
all  and  to  bless  all!" 

The  success  of  the  opening  day  was,  indeed,  undoubted. 
There  were  nearly  thirty  thousand  people  gathered  to- 
gether within  the  building,  and  nearly  three-quarters  of  a 
million  of  persons  lined  the  way  between  the  Exhibition 
and  Buckingham  Palace;  and  yet  no  accident  whatever 
occurred,  nor  had  the  police  any  trouble  imposed  on  them 
by  the  conduct  of  anybody  in  the  crowd.  "  It  was  impos- 
sible," wrote  Lord  Palmerston,  "  for  the  invited  guests  of  a 
lady's  drawing-room  to  have  conducted  themselves  with 
more  perfect  propriety  than  did  this  sea  of  human  beings. " 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  there  were  no  hostile  demonstra- 
tions by  Red  Republicans,  or  malignant  Chartists,  or  infuri- 
ated- Irish  Catholics.  The  one  thing  which  especially 
struck  foreign  observers,  and  to  which  many  eloquent  pens 
and  tongues  bore  witness,  was  the  orderly  conduct  of  the 
people.  Nor  did  the  subsequent  history  of  the  Exhibition 
in  any  way  belie  the  promise  of  its  opening  day.  It  con- 
tinued to  attract  delighted  crowds  to  the  last,  and  more 
than  once  held  within  its  precincts  at  one  moment  nearly 
a  hundred  thousand  persons,  a  concourse  large  enough  to 
have  made  the  population  of  a  respectable  Continental 
capital.  In  another  way  the  Exhibition  proved  even  more 
successful  than  was  anticipated.  There  had  been  some 
difficulty  in  raising  money  in  the  first  instance,  and  it  was 
thought  something  of  a  patriotic  risk  when  a  few  vspirited 
citizens  combined  to  secure  the  accomplishment  of  the 
undertaking  by   means   of   a   guarantee   fund.     But   the 


The  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park.  429 

guarantee  fund  became  in  the  end  merely  one  of  the  forms 
and  ceremonials  of  the  Exhibition,  for  the  undertaking 
not  only  covered  its  expenses,  but  left  a  huge  sum  of 
money  in  the  hands  of  the  Royal  Commissioners.  The 
Exhibition  was  closed  by  Prince  Albert  on  October  15th. 
That,  at  least,  may  be  described  as  the  closing  day,  for  it 
was  then  that  the  awards  of  prizes  were  made  known  in 
presence  of  the  Prince  and  a  large  concourse  of  people. 
The  Exhibition  itself  had  actually  been  closed  to  the  gen- 
eral public  on  the  eleventh  of  the  month.  It  has  been 
imitated  again  and  again.  It  was  followed  by  an  exhibi- 
tion in  Dublin;  an  exhibition  of  the  paintings  and  sculp- 
tures of  all  nations  in  Manchester;  three  great  exhibitions 
in  Paris;  the  International  Exhibition  in  Kensington  in 
1862 — the  enterprise  too  of  Prince  Albert,  although  not 
destined  to  have  his  presence  at  its  opening;  an  exhibition 
at  Vienna ;  one  in  Philadelphia ;  and  various  others. 
Where  all  nations  seem  to  have  agreed  to  pay  Prince  Al- 
bert's enterprise  the  compliment  of  imitation,  it  seems 
superfluous  to  say  that  it  was  a  success.  Time  has  so  toned 
down  our  expectations  in  regard  to  these  enterprises  that 
no  occasion  now  arises  for  the  feeling  of  disappointment 
which  was  long  associated  in  the  minds  of  once-sanguine 
persons  with  the  Crystal  Palace  of  Hyde  Park.  We  look 
on  such  exhibitions  now  as  useful  agencies  in  the  work  of 
industrial  development,  and  in  promoting  the  intercourse 
of  peoples,  and  thus  co-operating  with  various  other  influ- 
ences in  the  general  business  of  civilization.  But  the  im- 
pressions produced  by  the  Hyde  Park  Exhibition  were 
unique.  It  was  the  first  thing  of  the  kind;  the  gathering 
of  peoples  it  brought  together  was  as  new,  odd,  and  inter- 
esting as  the  glass  building  in  which  the  industry  of  the 
world  was  displayed.  For  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
Londoners  saw  the  ordinary  aspect  of  London  distinctly 
modified  and  changed  by  the  incursion  of  foreigners  who 
came  to  take  part  in  or  to  look  at  our  Exhibition.  Lon- 
don seemed  to  be  playing  at  holiday  in  a  strange  carnival 


4)o  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

sort  of  way  during  the  time  the  Exhibition  was  open. 
The  Hyde  Park  enterprise  bequeathed  nothing  very  tan- 
gible or  distinct  to  the  world,  except  indeed  the  palace 
which,  built  out  of  its  fabric,  not  its  ruins,  so  gracefully 
ornaments  one  of  the  soft  hills  of  Sydenham.  But  the 
memory  of  the  Exhibition  itself  is  very  distinct  with  all 
who  saw  it.  None  of  its  followers  were  exactly  like  it,  or 
could  take  its  place  in  the  recollection  of  those  who  were 
its  contemporaries.  In  a  year  made  memorable  by  many 
political  events  of  the  greatest  importance,  of  disturbed 
and  tempestuous  politics  abroad  and  at  home,  of  the  deaths 
of  many  illustrious  men  and  the  failure  of  many  splendid 
hopes,  the  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park  still  holds  its  place 
in  memory — not  for  what  it  brought  or  accomplished,  but 
simply  for  itself,  its  surroundings,  and  its  house  of  glass. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


PALMERSTON. 


The  death  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  left  Lord  Palmerston 
the  most  prominent,  if  not  actually  the  most  influential, 
among  the  statesmen  of  England.      Palmerston's  was  a 
strenuous,  self-asserting  character.      He  loved,  whenever 
he  had  an  opportunity,  to  make  a  stroke,  as  he  frequently 
put  it  himself,  "off  his  own  bat."     He  had  given  himself 
up  to  the  study  of  foreign  affairs  as  no  minister  of  his 
time  had  done.     He  had  a  peculiar  capacity  for  under- 
standing foreign  politics  and  people  as  well   as   foreign 
languages,  and  he  had  come  somewhat  to  pique  himself 
upon  his  knowledge.     As  Bacon  said  that  he  had  taken 
all  learning  for  his  province,  Palmerston  seemed  to  have 
made  up  his  mind  that  he  had  taken  all  European  affairs 
for  his  province.     His  sympathies  were  markedly  liberal. 
As  opinions  went  then,  they  might  have  been  considered 
among  statesmen  almost  revolutionary ;  for  the  Conserva- 
tive of  our  day  is  to  the  full  as  liberal  as  the  average  Lib- 
eral of  1848  and  1850.     In  all  the  popular  movements  go- 
ing on  throughout  the  Continent,  Palmerston's  sympathies 
were  generally  with  the  peoples  and  against  the  govern- 
ments; while  he  had,   on  the  other  hand,  a  very  strong 
contempt,  which  he  took  no  pains  to  conceal,  even  for  the 
very  best  class  of  the  Continental  demagogue.     It  was  not, 
however,  in  his  sympathies  that  Palmerston  differed  from 
most  of  his  colleagues.      He  was  not  more  liberal  even  in 
his  views  of  foreign  affairs  than  Lord  John  Russell ;  he 
was  probably  not  so  consistently  and  on  principle  a  sup- 
porter of  free  and  popular  institutions.     But  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's   energetic,  heedless    temperament,   his   exuberant 


4)2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

animal  spirits,  and  his  profound  confidence  in  himself  and 
his  opinions,  made  him  much  more  liberal  and  spontane- 
ous in  his  expressions  of  sympathy  than  a  man  of  Russell's 
colder  nature  could  well  have  been.  Palmerston  seized  a 
conclusion  at  once,  and  hardly  ever  departed  from  it.  He 
never  seemed  to  care  who  knew  what  he  thought  on  any 
subject.  He  had  a  contempt  for  men  of  more  deliberate 
temper,  and  often  spoke  and  wrote  as  if  he  thought  a  man 
slow  in  forming  an  opinion  must  needs  be  a  dull  man,  not 
to  say  a  fool.  All  opinions  not  his  own  he  held  in  good- 
humored  scorn.  In  some  of  his  letters  we  find  him  writ- 
ing of  men  of  the  most  undoubted  genius  and  wisdom, 
whose  views  have  since  stood  all  the  test  of  time  and  trial, 
as  if  they  were  mere  blockheads  for  whom  no  practical 
man  could  feel  the  slightest  respect.  It  would  be  almost 
superfluous  to  say,  in  describing  a  man  of  such  a  nature, 
that  Lord  Palmerston  sometimes  fancied  he  saw  great 
wisdom  and  force  of  character  in  men  for  whom  neither 
then  nor  since  did  the  world  in  general  show  much  regard. 
As  with  a  man,  so  with  a  cause.  Lord  Palmerston  was, 
to  all  appearances,  capricious  in  his  sympathies.  Calmer 
and  more  earnest  minds  were  sometimes  offended  at  what 
seemed  a  lack  of  deep-seated  principle  in  his  mind  and 
his  policy,  even  when  it  happened  that  he  and  they  were 
in  accord  as  to  the  course  that  ought  to  be  pursued.  His 
levity  often  shocked  them ;  his  blunt,  brusque  ways  of 
speaking  and  writing  sometimes  gave  downright  offence. 
In  his  later  years  Lord  Palmerston 's  manner  in  Parlia- 
ment and  out  of  it  had  greatly  mellowed  and  softened  and 
grown  more  genial.  He  retained  all  the  good  spirits  and 
the  ready,  easy,  marvellously  telling  humor;  but  he  had 
grown  more  considerate  of  the  feelings  of  opponents  in 
debate,  and  he  allowed  his  genuine  kindness  of  heart  a 
freer  influence  upon  his  mode  of  speech.  He  had  grown 
to  prefer,  on  the  whole,  his  friend,  or  even  his  honorable 
opponent,  to  his  joke.  They  who  only  remember  Palmer- 
ston in  his  very  later  years  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and 


Palmer  ston.  433 

who  can  only  recall  to  memory  that  bright,  racy  humor 
which  never  offended,  will  perhaps  find  it  hard  to  under- 
stand how  many  enemies  he  made  for  himself  at  an  earlier 
period  by  the  levity  and  flippancy  of  his  manner.  Many 
grave  statesmen  thought  that  the  levity  and  flippancy  were 
far  less  dangerous,  even  when  employed  in  irritating  his 
adversaries  in  the  House  of  Commons,  than  when  exer- 
cised in  badgering  foreign  ministers  and  their  govern- 
ments and  sovereigns.  Lord  Palmerston  was  imsparing 
in  his  lectures  to  foreign  States.  He  was  always  admon- 
ishing them  that  they  ought  to  lose  no  time  in  at  once 
adopting  the  principles  of  government  which  prevailed  in 
England.  He  not  uncommonly  put  his  admonitions  in 
the  tone  of  one  who  meant  to  say:  "  If  you  don't  take  my 
advice  you  will  be  ruined,  and  your  ruin  will  serve  you 
right  for  being  such  fools."  While,  therefore,  he  was  a 
Conservative  in  home  politics,  and  never  even  professed 
the  slightest  personal  interest  in  any  projects  of  political 
reform  in  England,  he  got  the  credit  all  over  the  Continent 
of  being  a  supporter,  promoter,  and  patron  of  all  manner 
of  revolutionary  movements,  and  a  disturber  of  the  relations 
between  subjects  and  their  sovereigns. 

Lord  Palmerston  was  not  inconsistent  in  thus  being  a 
Conservative  at  home  and  something  like  a  revolutionary 
abroad.  He  was  quite  satisfied  with  the  state  of  things  in 
England.  He  was  convinced  that  when  a  people  had  got 
a  well-limited  suffrage  and  a  respectable  House  of  Com- 
mons elected  by  open  vote,  a  House  of  Lords,  and  a  con- 
stitutional Sovereign,  they  had  got  all  that,  in  a  political 
sense,  man  has  to  hope  for.  He  was  not  a  far-seeing  man, 
nor  a  man  who  much  troubled  himself  about  what  a  certain 
class  of  writers  and  thinkers  are  fond  of  calling  "  problems 
of  life."  It  did  not  occur  to  him  to  think  that  as  a  matter 
of  absolute  necessity  the  very  reforms  we  enjoy  in  one 
day  are  only  putting  us  into  a  mental  condition  to  aspire 
after  and  see  the  occasion  for  further  reforms  as  the  days 
go  on.  But  he  clearly  saw  that  most  Continental  countries 
Vol.  I.— 28 


4^4  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

were  governed  on  a  system  which  was  not  only  worn  out 
and  decaying,  but  which  was  the  source  of  great  practical 
and  personal  evils  to  their  inhabitants.  He  desired,  there- 
fore, for  every  country  apolitical  system  like  that  of  Great 
Britain,  and  neither  for  Great  Britain  nor  for  any  other 
country  did  he  desire  anything  more.  He  was,  accord- 
ingly, looked  upon  by  Continental  ministers  as  a  patron 
of  revolution,  and  by  English  Radicals  as  the  steady  enemy 
of  political  reform.  Both  were  right  from  their  own  point 
of  view.  The  familiar  saying  among  Continental  Conser- 
vatives was  expressed  in  the  well-known  German  lines, 
which  affirm  that  "  If  the  devil  had  a  son,  he  must  be 
surely  Palmerston."  On  the  other  hand,  the  English 
Radical  party  regarded  him  as  the  most  formidable  enemy 
they  had.  Mr.  Cobden  deliberately  declared  him  to  be  the 
worst  minister  that  had  ever  governed  England.  At  a 
later  period,  when  Lord  Palmerston  invited  Cobden  to 
take  office  under  him,  Cobden  referred  to  what  he  had 
said  of  Palmerston,  and  gave  this  as  a  reason  to  show  the 
impossibility  of  his  serving  such  a  chief.  The  good-na- 
tured statesman  only  smiled,  and  observed  that  another 
public  man  who  had  just  joined  his  Administration  had 
often  said  things  as  hard  of  him  in  other  days.  "Yes," 
answered  Cobden,  quietly,  "but  I  meant  what  I  said." 

Palmerston,  therefore,  had  many  enemes  among  Euro- 
pean statesmen.  It  is  now  certain  that  the  Queen  frequently 
winced  under  the  expressions  of  ill-feeling  which  were 
brought  to  her  ears  as  affecting  England,  and,  as  she  sup- 
posed, herself,  and  which  she  believed  to  have  been  drawn 
on  her  by  the  inconsiderate  and  impulsive  conduct  of 
Palmerston.  The  Prince  Consort,  on  whose  advice  the 
Queen  very  naturally  relied,  was  a  man  of  singularly  calm 
and  earnest  nature.  He  liked  to  form  his  opinions  delib- 
erately and  slowly,  and  disliked  expressing  any  opinion 
imtil  his  mind  was  well  made  up.  Lord  Palmerston, 
when  Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs,  was  much  in  the  habit 
of  writing  and  answering  despatches  on  the  spur  of  the 


Palmerston.  435 

moment,  and  without  consulting  either  the  Queen  or  his 
colleagues.  Palmerston  complained  of  the  long  dela}'."? 
which  took  place  on  several  occasions  when,  in  matters  of 
urgent  importance,  he  waited  to  submit  despatches  to  the 
Queen  before  sending  them  off.  He  was  of  opinion  that 
during  the  memorable  controversy  on  the  Spanish  mar- 
riages the  interests  of  England  were  once  in  danger  of  being 
compromised  by  the  delay  thus  forced  upon  him.  He 
contended,  too,  that  where  the  general  policy  of  a  state 
was  clearly  marked  out  and  well  known,  it  would  have 
been  idle  to  insist  that  a  Foreign  Secretary  capable  of  per- 
forming the  duties  of  his  office  should  wait  to  submit  for 
the  inspection  and  approval  of  the  Sovereign  and  his  col- 
leagues every  scrap  of  paper  he  wrote  on  before  it  was  al- 
lowed to  leave  England.  If  such  precautions  were  needful, 
Lord  Palmerston  contended,  it  could  only  be  because  the 
person  holding  the  office  of  Foreign  Secretary  was  unfit 
for  his  post;  and  he  ought,  therefore,  to  be  dismissed,  and 
some  better  qualified  man  put  in  his  place.  Of  course  there 
is  some  obvious  justice  in  this  view  of  the  case.  It  would 
perhaps  have  been  unreasonable  to  expect  that,  at  a  time 
when  the  business  of  the  Foreign  Office  had  suddenly 
swelled  to  unprecedented  magnitude,  the  same  rules  and 
formalities  could  be  kept  up  which  had  suited  slower  and 
less  busy  days.  But  the  complaint  made  by  the  Queen 
was  not  that  Palmerston  failed  to  consult  her  on  every  de- 
tail, and  to  submit  every  line  relating  to  the  organization 
of  the  Foreign  Office  for  her  approval  before  he  sent  it  off. 
The  complaint  was  clear,  and  full  of  matter  for  very  grave 
consideration.  The  Queen  complained  that  on  matters 
concerning  the  actual  policy  of  the  State  Palmerston  was 
in  the  habit  of  acting  on  his  own  independent  judgment 
and  authority ;  that  she  found  herself  more  than  once  thus 
pledged  to  a  course  of  policy  which  she  had  not  had  an 
opportimity  of  considering,  and  would  not  have  approved 
if  she  had  had  such  an  opportimity;  and  that  she  hardly 
ever  found  any  question  absolutely  intact  and  uncompro- 


436  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

mised  when  it  was  submitted  to  her  judgment.  The  com- 
plaint was  justified  in  many  cases.  Lord  Palmerston  fre- 
quently acted  in  a  manner  which  almost  made  it  seem  as 
if  he  were  purposely  ignoring  the  authority  of  the  Sover- 
eign. In  part  this  came  from  the  natural  impatience  of 
a  quick  man  confident  in  his  own  knowledge  of  a  subject, 
and  chafing  at  any  delay  which  he  thought  unnecessary 
and  merely  formal.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  avoid  a  suspicion 
that  Lord  Palmerston's  rapidity  of  action  sometimes  had 
a  different  explanation.  Two  impressions  seem  to  have 
had  a  place  deeply  down  in  the  mind  of  the  Foreign  Sec- 
retary. He  appears  to  have  felt  sure  that,  roughly  speak- 
ing, the  sympathies  of  the  English  people  were  with  the 
Continental  movements  against  the  sovereigns,  and  that 
the  sympathies  of  the  English  court  were  with  the  sover- 
eigns against  the  popular  movements.  In  the  first  belief 
he  was  undoubtedly  right.  In  the  second  he  was  probably 
right.  It  is  not  likely  that  a  man  of  Prince  Albert's 
peculiar  turn  of  mind  could  have  admitted  much  sym- 
pathy with  revolution  against  constituted  authority  of  any 
kind.  Even  his  Liberalism,  undoubtedly  a  deep  and 
genuine  conviction,  did  not  lead  him  to  make  much  al- 
lowance for  any  disturbing  impulses.  His  orderly  intel- 
lectual nature,  with  little  of  fire  or  passion  in  it,  was  prone 
to  estimate  everything  b)''  the  manner  in  which  it  stood 
the  test  of  logical  argument.  He  could  understand  arguing 
against  a  bad  system  better  than  he  could  understand  tak- 
ing the  risk  of  making  things  worse  by  resisting  it.  Some 
of  the  published  memoranda  or  other  writings  of  Prince 
Albert  are  full  of  a  curious  interest,  as  showing  the  way 
in  which  a  calm,  intellectual,  and  earnest  man  could  ap- 
proach some  of  the  burning  questions  of  the  day  with  the 
belief  apparently  that  the  great  antagonisms  of  systems, 
and  of  opposing  national  forces  could  be  argued  into  mod- 
eration and  persuaded  into  compromise.  In  Prince  Albert 
there  were  two  tendencies  counteracting  each  other.  His 
natural  sympathies  were  manifestly  with  the  authority  of 


Palmerston.  437 

thrones.  His  education  taught  him  that  thrones  can  only 
exist  by  virtue  of  their  occupants  recognizing  the  fact  that 
they  do  not  exist  of  their  own  authority,  and  taking  care 
that  they  do  not  become  unsuited  to  the  time.  The  in- 
fluence of  Prince  Albert  would,  therefore,  be  something 
very  different  from  the  impulses  and  desires  of  Lord  Palm- 
erston. It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  Palmerston 
sometimes  acted  upon  this  conviction.  He  thought  he 
understood  better  than  others  not  only  the  tendencies  of 
events  in  foreign  politics,  but  also  the  tendencies  of  Eng- 
lish public  opinion  with  regard  to  them.  He  well  knew 
that  so  long  as  he  had  public  opinion  with  him,  no  influence 
could  long  prevail  against  him.  His  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish public  opinion  was  something  like  an  instinct.  It 
could  always  be  trusted.  It  had,  indeed,  no  far  reach. 
Lord  Palmerston  never  could  be  relied  upon  for  a  judg- 
ment as  to  the  possible  changes  of  a  generation,  or  even  a 
few  years.  But  he  was  an  almost  infallible  guide  as  to 
what  a  majority  of  the  English  people  were  likely  to  say 
if  asked  at  the  particular  moment  when  any  question  was 
under  dispute.  Palmerston  never  really  guided,  but  al- 
ways followed,  the  English  public,  even  in  foreign  affairs. 
He  was,  it  seems  almost  needless  to  say,  an  incomparably 
better  judge  of  the  direction  English  sentiment  was  likely 
to  take  than  the  most  acute  foreigner  put  in  such  a  place 
as  Prince  Albert's  could  possibly  hope  to  be.  It  may  be 
assumed,  then,  that  some  at  least  of  Lord  Palmerston 's 
actions  were  dictated  by  the  conviction  that  he  had  the 
general  force  of  that  sentiment  to  sustain  him  in  case  his 
mode  of  conducting  the  business  of  the  Foreign  Office 
should  ever  be  called  into  account. 

A  time  came  when  it  was  called  into  account.  The 
Queen  and  the  Prince  had  long  chafed  under  Lord  Palm- 
erston's  cavalier  way  of  doing  business.  So  far  back  as 
1849  her  Majesty  had  felt  obliged  to  draw  the  attention  of 
the  Foreign  Secretary  to  the  fact  that  his  office  was  con- 
stitutionally under  the  control  of  the  Prime-minister,  and 


4^8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

that  the  despatches  to  be  submitted  for  her  approval  should, 
therefore,  pass  through  the  hands  of  Lord  John  Russell. 
Lord  John  Russell  approved  of  this  arrangement,  only  sug- 
gesting— and  the  suggestion  is  of  some  moment  in  consid- 
ering the  defence  of  his  conduct  afterward  made  by  Lord 
Palmerston — that  every  facility  should  be  given  for  the 
transaction  of  business  by  the  Queen's  attending  to  the 
draft  despatches  as  soon  as  possible  after  their  arrival. 
The  Queen  accepted  the  suggestion  good-humoredly,  only 
pleading  that  she  should  "  not  be  pressed  for  an  answer 
within  a  few  minutes,  as  is  done  now  sometimes."  One 
can  see  tolerably  well  what  a  part  of  the  difficulty  was, 
even  from  these  slight  hints.  Lord  Palmerston  was  rapid 
in  forming  his  judgments,  as  in  all  his  proceedings,  and 
when  once  he  had  made  up  his  mind  was  impatient  of  any 
delay  which  seemed  to  him  superfluous.  Prince  Albert 
was  slow,  deliberate,  reflective,  and  methodical.  Lord 
Palmerston  was  always  sure  he  was  right  in  every  judg- 
ment he  formed,  even  if  it  were  adopted  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment;  Prince  Albert  loved  reconsideration,  and  was 
open  to  new  argument  and  late  conviction.  However,  the 
difficulty  was  got  over  in  1849.  Lord  Palmerston  agreed 
to  every  suggestion,  and  for  the  time  all  seemed  likely  to 
go  smoothly.  It  was  only  for  the  time.  The  Queen  soon 
believed  she  had  reason  to  complain  that  the  new  arrange- 
ment was  not  carried  out.  Things  were  going  on,  she 
thought,  in  just  the  old  way.  Lord  Palmerston  dealt  as 
before  with  foreign  courts  according  to  what  seemed  best 
to  him  at  the  moment;  and  his  Sovereign  and  his  col- 
leagues often  only  knew  of  some  important  despatch  or  in- 
struction when  the  thing  was  done,  and  could  not  be  con- 
veniently or  becomingly  undone.  The  Prince,  at  her 
Majesty's  request,  wrote  to  Lord  John  Russell,  complain- 
ing strongly  of  the  conduct  of  Lord  Palmerston.  The 
letter  declared  that  Lord  Palmerston  had  failed  in  his  duty 
toward  her,  "  and  not  from  oversight  or  negligence,  but 
upon  principle,  and  with  astonishing  pertinacity,  against 


Palmerston.  439 

every  effort  of  the  Queen.  Besides  which,  Lord  Palmer- 
ston does  not  scruple  to  let  it  appear  in  public  as  if  the 
Sovereign's  negligence  in  attending  to  the  papers  sent  to 
her  caused  delay  and  annoyance."  Even  before  this  it 
seems  that  the  Queen  had  drawn  up  a  memorandum  to  lay 
down  in  clear  and  severe  language  the  exact  rules  by 
which  the  Foreign  Secretary  must  be  bound  in  his  dealings 
with  her.  The  memorandum  was  not  used  at  that  time, 
as  it  was  thought  that  the  remonstrances  of  the  Sovereign 
and  the  Prime-minister  alike  could  hardly  fail  to  have  some 
effect  on  the  Foreign  Secretary.  This  time,  however,  the 
Queen  appears  to  have  felt  that  she  could  no  longer  refrain ; 
and,  accordingly,  the  following  important  memorandum 
was  addressed  by  her  Majesty  to  the  Prime-minister.  It 
is  well  worth  quoting  in  full,  partly  because  it  became  a 
subject  of  much  interest  and  controversy  afterward,  and 
partly  because  of  the  tone  of  peculiar  sternness,  rare  in- 
deed from  a  sovereign  to  a  minister  in  our  times,  in  which 

its  instructions  are  conveyed : 

Osborne,  August  12th,  1850. 

With  reference  to  the  conversation  about  Lord  Palmerston  which 
the  Queen  had  with  Lord  John  Russell  the  other  day,  and  Lord 
Palmerston 's  disavowal  that  he  ever  intended  any  disrespect  to  her 
by  the  various  neglects  of  which  she  has  had  so  long  and  so  often  to 
complain,  she  thinks  it  right,  in  order  to  prevent  any  mistake  for  the 
future,  to  explain  what  it  is  she  expects  from  the  Foreign  Secretary. 

She  requires : 

First.  That  he  will  distinctly  state  what  he  proposes  to  do  in  a 
given  case,  in  order  that  the  Queen  may  know  as  distinctly  to  what 
she  has  given  her  royal  sanction. 

Second.  Having  once  given  her  sanction  to  a  measure,  that  it  be 
not  arbitrarily  altered  or  modified  by  the  minister  ;  such  an  act  she 
must  consider  as  failure  in  sincerity  toward  the  Crown,  and  justly 
to  be  visited  by  the  exercise  of  her  constitutional  right  of  dismiss- 
ing that  minister.  She  expects  to  be  kept  informed  of  what  passes 
between  him  and  the  foreign  ministers  before  important  decisions 
are  taken  based  upon  that  intercourse ;  to  receive  the  foreign  de- 
spatches in  good  time,  and  to  have  the  drafts  for  her  approval  sent 
to  her  in  sufficient  time  to  make  herself  acquainted  with  their  con- 
tents before  they  must  be  sent  off.  The  Queen  thinks  it  best  that 
Lord  John  Russell  should  show  this  letter  to  Lord  Palmerston. 


440  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

The  tone  of  the  memorandum  was  severe,  but  there  was 
nothing  unreasonable  in  its  stipulations.  On  the  contrary, 
it  simply  prescribed  what  every  one  might  have  supposed 
to  be  the  elementary  conditions  on  which  the  duties  of  a 
sovereign  and  a  foreign  minister  can  alone  be  satisfac- 
torily carried  on.  Custom  as  well  as  obvious  convenience 
demanded  such  conditions.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  de- 
clared that  when  he  was  Prime-minister  no  despatch  left 
the  Foreign  Office  without  his  seeing  it.  No  sovereign, 
one  would  think,  could  consent  to  the  responsibility  of  rule 
on  any  other  terms.  We  have,  perhaps,  got  into  the  habit 
of  thinking,  or  at  least  of  saying,  that  the  sovereign  of  a  con- 
stitutional country  only  rules  though  the  ministers.  But  it 
would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  sovereign  has 
no  constitutional  functions  whatever  provided  by  our  sys- 
tem of  government,  and  that  the  sole  duty  of  a  monarch  is 
to  make  a  figure  in  certain  state  pageantry.  It  has  some- 
times been  said  that  the  sovereign  in  a  country  like  Eng- 
land is  only  the  signet-ring  of  the  nation.  If  this  were  true, 
it  might  be  asked  with  unanswerable  force  why  a  veritable 
signet-ring  costing  a  few  pounds,  and  never  requiring  to  be 
renewed,  would  not  serve  all  purposes  quite  as  well,  and 
save  expense.  But  the  position  of  the  sovereign  is  not  one 
of  meaningless  inactivity.  The  sovereign  has  a  very  dis- 
tinct and  practical  office  to  fulfil  in  a  constitutional  country. 
The  monarch  in  England  is  the  chief  magistrate  of  the 
State,  specially  raised  above  party  and  passion  and  change 
in  order  to  be  able  to  look  with  a  clearer  eye  to  all  that 
concerns  the  interests  of  the  nation.  Our  constitutional 
system  grows  and  develops  itself  year  after  year  as  our  re- 
quirements and  conditions  change;  and  the  position  of  the 
sovereign,  like  everything  else,  has  undergone  some  modi- 
fication. It  is  settled  now  beyond  dispute  that  the  sovereign 
is  not  to  dismiss  ministers,  or  a  minister,  simply  from  per- 
sonal inclination  or  conviction,  as  until  a  very  recent  day 
it  was  the  right  and  the  habit  of  English  monarchs  to  do. 
The  sovereign  now  retains,  in  virtue  of  usage  having  almost 


Palmer  ston.  441 

the  force  of  constitutional  law,  the  ministers  of  whom  the 
House  of  Commons  approves.  But  the  Crown  still  has 
the  right,  in  case  of  extreme  need,  of  dismissing  any  min- 
ister who  actually  fails  to  do  his  duty.  The  sovereign  is 
always  supposed  to  understand  the  business  of  the  State, 
to  consider  its  affairs,  and  to  offer  an  opinion,  and  enforce 
it  by  argument,  on  any  question  submitted  by  the  minis- 
ters. When  the  ministers  find  that  they  cannot  allow  their 
judgment  to  bend  to  that  of  the  sovereign,  then  indeed  the 
sovereign  gives  way  or  the  ministers  resign.  In  all  ordi- 
nary cases  the  sovereign  gives  way.  But  it  was  never  in- 
tended by  the  English  Constitution  that  the  ministers  and 
the  country  were  not  to  have  the  benefit  of  the  advice  and 
the  judgment  of  a  magistrate  who  is  purposely  placed 
above  all  the  excitements  and  temptations  of  party,  its 
triumphs  and  its  reverses,  and  who  is  assumed,  there- 
fore, to  have  no  other  motive  than  the  good  of  the  State 
in  offering  an  advice.  The  sovereign  would  grossly  fail 
in  public  duty,  and  would  be  practically  disappointing  the 
confidence  of  the  nation,  who  consented  to  act  simply  as 
the  puppet  of  the  minister,  and  to  sign  mechanically  and 
without  question  every  document  he  laid  on  the  table. 

In  the  principles  which  she  laid  down,  therefore,  the 
Queen  was  strictly  right.  But  the  memorandum  was  none 
the  less  a  severe  and  a  galling  rebuke  for  the  Foreign  Sec- 
retary. We  can  imagine  with  what  emotions  Lord  Palm- 
erston  must  have  received  it.  He  was  a  proud,  self-con- 
fident man;  and  it  came  on  him  just  in  the  moment  of  his 
greatest  triumph.  Never  before,  never  since,  did  Lord 
Palmerston  win  so  signal  and  so  splendid  a  victory  as  that 
which  he  had  extorted  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  eloquence 
and  his  genius  from  a  reluctant  House  of  Commons  in  the 
Don  Pacifico  debate.  Never,  probably,  in  our  Parliamen- 
tary history  did  a  man  of  years  so  advanced  accomplish 
such  a  feat  of  eloquence,  argument  and  persuasion  as  he 
had  achieved.  He  stood  up  before  the  world  the  foremost 
English  statesman  of  the  day.     It  is  easy  to  imagine  how 


442  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

deeply  he  must  have  felt  the  rebuke  conveyed  in  the 
memorandum  of  the  Queen.  We  know,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  from  what  he  himself  afterward  said,  that  he  did  feel 
it  bitterly.  But  he  kept  down  his  feelings.  Whether  he 
was  right  or  wrong  in  the  matter  of  dispute,  he  undoubt- 
edly showed  admirable  self-control  and  good  temper  in 
his  manner  of  receiving  the  reprimand.  He  wrote  a 
friendly  and  good-humored  letter  to  Lord  John  Russell, 
saying,  "  I  have  taken  a  copy  of  this  memorandum  of  the 
Queen,  and  will  not  fail  to  attend  to  the  directions  which 
it  contains."  The  letter  then  gave  a  few  lines  of  explana- 
tion about  the  manner  in  which  delays  had  arisen  in  the 
sending  of  despatches  to  the  Queen,  but  promising  to  re- 
turn to  the  old  practice,  and  expressing  a  hope  that  if  the 
return  required  an  additional  clerk  or  two,  the  Treasury 
would  be  liberal  in  allowing  him  that  assistance.  Nothing 
could  be  more  easy  and  pleasant.  It  might  have  seemed 
the  ease  of  absolute  carelessness.  But  it  was  nothing  of 
the  kind.  Lord  Palmerston  had  acted  deliberately  and 
with  a  purpose.  He  afterward  explained  why  he  had  not 
answered  the  rebuke  by  resigning  his  office.  "  The  paper, " 
he  said,  "  was  written  in  anger  by  a  lady  as  well  as  by  a 
sovereign,  and  the  difference  between  a  lady  and  a  man 
could  not  be  forgotten  even  in  the  case  of  the  occupant  of 
the  throne."  He  had  "no  reason  to  suppose  that  this 
memorandum  would  ever  be  seen  by  or  be  known  to  any- 
body but  the  Queen,  John  Russell,  and  myself."  Again, 
"I  had  lately  been  the  object  of  violent  political  attack, 
and  had  gained  a  great  and  signal  victory  in  the  House  of 
Commons  and  in  public  opinion;  to  have  resigned  then 
would  have  been  to  have  given  the  fruits  of  victory  to  an- 
tagonists whom  I  had  defeated,  and  to  have  abandoned  m)' 
political  supporters  at  the  very  moment  when  by  their 
means  I  had  triumphed. "  But  beyond  all  that,  Lord  Palm- 
erston said  that  by  suddenly  resigning  "  I  should  have 
been  bringing  for  decision  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion 
a  personal   quarrel  between  myself  and  my   Sovereign — a 


Palmer  ston.  443 

step  which  no  subject  ought  to  take  if  he  can  possibly  avoid 
it;  for  the  result  of  such  a  course  must  be  either  fatal  to 
him  or  injurious  to  the  country.  If  he  should  prove  to  be 
in  the  wrong,  he  would  be  irretrievably  condemned;  if 
the  Sovereign  should  be  proved  to  be  in  the  wrong,  the 
monarchy  would  suffer." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  high  respect  for  the  man- 
ner in  which,  having  come  to  this  determination,  Lord 
Palmerston  at  once  acted  upon  it.  As  he  had  resolved 
not  to  resent  the  rebuke,  he  would  not  allow  any  gleam  of 
feeling  to  creep  into  his  letter  which  could  show  that  he 
felt  any  resentment.  Few  men  could  have  avoided  the 
temptation  to  throw  into  a  reply  on  such  an  occasion  some- 
thing of  the  tone  of  the  injured,  the  unappreciated,  the 
martyr,  the  wronged  one  who  endures  much  and  will  not 
complain.  Lord  Palmerston  felt  instinctively  the  bad  taste 
and  unwisdom  of  such  a  style  of  reply.  He  took  his  re- 
buke in  the  most  perfect  good-humor.  His  letter  must 
have  surprised  Lord  John  Russell.  Macaulay  observes 
that  Warren  Hastings,  confident  that  he  knew  best  and 
was  acting  rightly,  endured  the  rebukes  of  the  East  India 
Company  with  a  patience  which  was  sometimes  mistaken 
for  the  patience  of  stupidity.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  when 
the  Prime-minister  received  Lord  Palmerston 's  reply  he 
may  have  mistaken  its  patience  for  the  patience  of  down- 
right levity  and  indifference. 

Lord  Palmerston  went  a  step  farther  in  the  way  of  con- 
ciliation. He  asked  for  an  interview  with  Prince  Albert, 
and  he  explained  to  the  Prince  in  the  most  emphatic  and 
indignant  terms  that  the  -accusation  against  him  of  being 
purposely  wanting  in  respect  to  the  Sovereign  was  abso- 
lutely unfounded.  "  Had  it  been  deserved,  he  ought  to  be 
no  longer  tolerated  in  society."  But  he  does  not  seem,  in 
the  course  of  the  interview,  to  have  done  much  more  than 
argue  the  point  as  to  the  propriety  and  convenience  of  the 
system  he  had  lately  been  adopting  in  the  business  of  the 
Foreign  Office. 


444  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

So  for  the  hour  the  matter  dropped.  Other  events  in- 
terfered ;  there  were  many  important  questions  of  domestic 
policy  to  be  attended  to;  and  for  some  time  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  policy  and  his  way  of  conducting  the  business  of  the 
Foreign  Office  did  not  invite  any  particular  attention. 
But  the  old  question  was  destined  to  come  up  again  in 
more  serious  form  than  before. 

The  failure  of  the  Hungarian  rebellion,  through  the  in- 
tervention of  Russia,  called  up  a  wide  and  deep  feeling 
of  regret  and  indignation  in  this  country.  The  English 
people  had  very  generally  sympathized  with  the  cause  of 
the  Hungarians,  and  rejoiced  in  the  victories  which,  up 
to  a  certain  point,  the  arms  of  the  insurgents  had  won. 
When  the  Hungarians  were  put  down  at  last,  not  by  the 
strength  of  Austria,  but  by  the  intervention  of  Russia,  the 
anger  of  Englishmen  in  general  found  loud-spoken  expres- 
sion. Louis  Kossuth,  who  had  been  Dictator  of  Hungary 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  insurrection,  and  who  repre- 
sented, in  the  English  mind  at  least,  the  cause  of  Hungary 
and  her  national  independence,  came  to  England.  He 
was  about  to  take  up  his  residence,  as  he  then  intended, 
in  the  United  States,  and  on  his  way  thither  he  visited 
England.  He  had  applied  for  permission  to  pass  through 
French  territory,  and  had  been  refused  the  favor.  The 
refusal  only  gave  one  additional  reason  to  the  English 
public  for  welcoming  him  with  especial  cordiality.  He 
was  accordingly  received  at  Southampton,  in  Birmingham, 
in  London,  with  an  enthusiasm  such  as  no  foreigner  except 
Garibaldi  alone  has  ever  drawn  in  our  time  from  the  Eng- 
lish people.  There  was  much  in  Kossuth  himself,  as  well 
as  in  his  cause,  to  attract  the  enthusiasm  of  popular  as- 
semblages. He  had  a  strikingly  handsome  face  and  a 
stately  presence.  He  was  picturesque  and  perhaps  even 
theatric  in  his  dress  and  his  bearing.  He  looked  like  a 
picture;  all  his  attitudes  and  gestures  seemed  as  if  they 
were  meant  to  be  reproduced  by  a  painter.  He  was  un- 
doubtedly one  of  the  most  eloquent  men  who  ever  addressed 


Paluicrston.  445 

an  English  popular  audience.     In  one  of  his  imprisonments 
Kossuth  had  studied  the  English  language,  chiefly  from 
the  pages  of  Shakespeare.      He  had  mastered  our  tongue 
as  few  foreigners  have  ever  been  able  to  do;  but  what  he 
had  mastered  was  not  the  common  colloquial  English  of 
the  streets  and  the  drawing-rooms.     The  English  he  spoke 
was  the  noblest  in   its  style  from  which  a  student  could 
supply  his  eloquence :  Kossuth  spoke  the  English  of  Shakes- 
peare.    He  could  address  a  public  meeting  for  an  hour  or 
more  with  a  fluency  not  inferior,   seemingly,  to  that  of 
Gladstone,  with  a  measured  dignity  and  well-restrained 
force  that  were  not  unworthy  of  Bright,  and  in  curiously 
expressive,    stately,    powerful,    pathetic    English,    which 
sounded  as  if  it  belonged  to  a  higher  time  and  to  loftier 
interests  than  ours.     Viewed  as  a  mere  performance,  the 
achievement  of  Kossuth  was  unique.     It  may  well  be  im- 
agined what  the  effect  was  on  a  popular  audience   when 
such  eloquence  was  poured  forth   in  glowing  eulogy  of  a 
cause  with  which  they  sympathized,  and  in  denunciation 
of  enemies  and  principles  they  detested.      It  was  impossi- 
ble not  to  be  impressed  by  the  force  of  some  of  the  striking 
and  dramatic  passages  in  Kossuth's  fervid,  half-Oriental 
orations.      He  stretched  out  his  right  hand,  and  declared 
that  "  the  time  was  when  I  held  the  destinies  of  the  House 
of  Hapsburg  in  the  hollow  of  that  hand!"      He  apostro- 
phized those  who  fought  and  fell  in  the  rank-and-file  of 
Hungary's  champions  as  "  unnamed  demigods. "     He  pref- 
aced a  denunciation  of  the  Papal  policy  by  an  impassioned 
lament  over  the  brief  hopes  that  the  Pope  was  about  to 
head  the  Liberal  movement  in  Italy,  and  reminded  his 
hearers  that  "there  was   a  time  when  the  name  of  Pio 
Nono,  coupled  with  that  of  Louis  Kossuth,  was  thundered 
\n  vivas  along  the  sunny  shores  of  the  Adriatic. "     Every 
appeal    was    vivid    and    dramatic;    every   allusion    told. 
Throughout  the  whole  there  ran  the  thread  of  one  distinct 
principle  of  international  policy  to  which  Kossuth  endeav- 
ored to  obtain  the  assent  of  the  English  people.     This  was 


446  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  principle  that  if  one  State  intervenes  in  the  domestic 
affairs  of  another  for  the  purpose  of  putting  down  revolu- 
tion, it  then  becomes  the  right,  and  may  even  be  the  duty, 
of  any  third  State  to  throw  in  the  weight  of  her  sword 
against  the  unjustifiable  intervention.  As  a  principle  this 
is  nothing  more  than  some  of  the  ablest  and  most  thought- 
ful Englishmen  had  advocated  before  and  have  advocated 
since.  But  in  Kossuth's  mind,  and  in  the  understanding 
of  those  who  heard  him,  it  meaat  that  England  ought  to 
declare  war  against  Russia  or  Austria,  or  both ;  the  former 
for  having  intervened  between  the  Emperor  of  Austria  and 
the  Hungarians,  and  the  latter  for  having  invited  and 
profited  by  the  intervention. 

The  presence  of  Kossuth  and  the  reception  he  got  excited 
a  wild  anger  and  alarm  among  Austrian  statesmen.  The 
Austrian  minister  was  all  sensitiveness  and  remonstrance. 
The  relations  between  this  country  and  Austria  seemed  to 
become  every  day  more  and  more  strained.  Lord  Palm- 
erston  regarded  the  anger  and  the  fears  of  Austria  with 
a  contempt  which  he  took  no  pains  to  conceal.  Before 
the  Hungarian  exile  had  reached  this  country,  while  he 
was  still  under  the  protection  of  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  and 
Austria  was  in  wild  alarm  lest  he  should  be  set  at  liberty 
and  should  come  to  England,  Lord  Palmerston  wrote  to  a 
British  diplomatist,  saying,  "What  a  childish,  silly  fear 
this  is  of  Kossuth!  What  great  harm  could  he  do  to  Aus- 
tria while  in  France  or  England?  He  would  be  the  hero 
of  half  a  dozen  dinners  in  England,  at  which  would  be 
made  speeches  not  more  violent  than  those  which  have  been 
made  on  platforms  here  within  the  last  four  months,  and 
he  would  soon  sink  into  comparative  obscurity;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  so  long  as  he  is  a  State  dt'tenu  in  Turkey 
he  is  a  martyr  and  the  object  of  never-ceasing  interest." 
Lord  Palmerston  understood  thoroughly  the  temper  of  his 
countrymen  in  general.  The  English  public  never  had 
any  serious  notion  of  going  to  war  with  Austria  in  obedi- 
ence to  Kossuth's  appeal.     They  sympathized  generally 


Palmer  ston.  447 

with  Kossuth's  cause,  or  with  the  cause  which  they  un- 
derstood him  to  represent;  they  were  taken  with  his  pic- 
turesque appearance  and  his  really  wonderful  eloquence ; 
they  wanted  a  new  hero,  and  Kossuth  seemed  positively 
cut  out  to  supply  the  want.  The  enthusiasm  cooled  down 
after  a  while,  as  was  indeed  inevitable.  The  time  was  not 
far  off  when  Kossuth  was  to  make  vain  appeals  to  almost 
empty  halls,  and  when  the  eloquence  that  once  could  cram 
the  largest  buildings  with  excited  admirers  was  to  call 
aloud  to  solitude.  There  came  a  time  when  Kossuth  lived 
in  England  forgotten  and  unnoticed;  when  his  passing 
away  from  England  was  unobserved,  as  his  presence  there 
had  long  been.  There  seems,  one  can  hardly  help  saying, 
something  cruel  in  this  way  of  suddenly  taking  up  the 
representative  of  some  foreign  cause,  the  spokesman  of 
some  "mission;"  and  then,  when  he  has  been  filled  with 
vain  hopes,  letting  him  drop  down  to  disappointment  and 
neglect.  It  was  not,  perhaps,  the  fault  of  the  English 
people  if  Kossuth  mistook,  as  many  another  man  in  like 
circumstances  has  done,  the  meaning  of  English  popular 
sympathy.  The  English  crowds  who  applauded  Kossuth 
at  first  meant  nothing  more  than  general  sympathy  with 
any  hero  of  Continental  revolution,  and  personal  admira- 
tion for  the  eloquence  of  the  man  who  addressed  them. 
But  Kossuth  did  not  thus  accept  the  homage  paid  to  him. 
No  foreigner  could  have  understood  it  in  his  place.  Lord 
Palmerston  understood  it  thoroughly,  and  knew  what  it 
meant,  and  how  long  it  would  last. 

The  time,  however,  had  not  yet  come  when  the  justice 
of  Lord  Palmerston's  words  was  to  be  established.  Kos- 
suth was  the  hero  of  the  hour,  the  comet  of  the  season. 
The  Austrian  statesmen  were  going  on  as  if  every  word 
spoken  at  a  Kossuth  meeting  were  a  declaration  of  war 
against  Austria.  Lord  Palmerston  was  disposed  to  chuckle 
over  the  anger  thus  displayed.  "  Kossuth's  reception,"  he 
wrote  to  his  brother,  "  must  have  been  gall  and  worm- 
wood to  the  Austrians  and  to  the  absolutists  generally." 


448  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Some  of  Lord  Palmerston's  colleagues,  however,  became 
greatly  alarmed  when  it  was  reported  that  the  Foreign 
Minister  was  about  to  receive  a  visit  from  Kossuth  in 
person,  to  thank  him  for  the  sympathy  and  protection 
which  England  had  accorded  to  the  Hungarian  refugees 
while  they  were  still  in  Turkey,  and  without  which  it  is 
only  too  likely  that  they  would  have  been  handed  over 
to  Austria  or  Russia.  It  was  thought  that  for  the  Foreign 
Secretary  to  receive  a  formal  visit  of  thanks  from  Kossuth 
would  be  regarded  by  Austria  as  a  recognition  by  England 
of  the  justice  of  Kossuth's  cause,  and  an  expression  of 
censure  against  Austria.  If  Kossuth  were  received  by 
Lord  Palmerston,  the  Austrian  ambassador,  it  was  confi- 
dently reported,  would  leave  England.  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell took  alarm,  and  called  a  meeting  of  the  cabinet  to 
consider  the  momentous  question.  Lord  Palmerston 
reluctantly  consented  to  appease  the  alarms  of  his  col- 
leagues by  promising  to  avoid  an  interview  with  Kossuth. 
It  does  not  seem  to  us  that  there  was  much  dignity  in 
the  course  taken  by  the  cabinet.  Lord  Palmerston  actually 
used,  and  very  properly  used,  all  the  influence  England 
could  command  to  protect  the  Hungarian  refugees  in 
Turkey.  He  had  intimated  very  distinctly,  and  with  the 
full  approval  of  England,  that  he  would  use  still  stronger 
measures  if  necessary  to  protect  at  once  the  Sultan  and 
the  refugees.  It  seems  to  us  that,  having  done  this 
openly,  and  compelled  Russia  and  Austria  to  bend  to  his 
urgency,  there  could  be  little  harm  in  his  receiving  a  visit 
from  one  of  the  men  whom  he  had  thus  protected.  Aus- 
tria's sensibilities  must  have  been  of  a  peculiar  nature 
indeed,  if  they  could  bear  Lord  Palmerston's  very  distinct 
and  energetic  intervention  between  her  and  her  intended 
victim,  but  could  not  bear  to  hear  that  the  rescued  victim 
had  paid  Lord  Palmerston  a  formal  visit  of  gratitude.  At 
all  events,  it  does  not  seem  as  if  an  English  minister  was 
bound  to  go  greatly  out  of  his  way  to  conciliate  such  very 
eccentric  and  morbid  sensibilities.     We  owe  to  a  foreign 


Palmerston.  449 

state  with  which  we  are  on  friendly  terms  a  strict  and 
honorable  neutrality.  Our  ministers  are  bound  by  cour- 
tesy, prudence,  and  good-sense  not  to  obtrude  any  expres- 
sion of  their  opinion  touching  the  internal  dissensions  of 
a  foreign  state  on  the  representatives  of  that  state  or  the 
public.  But  they  are  not  by  any  means  bound  to  treat  the 
enemies  of  every  foreign  state  as  our  enemies.  They 
are  not  expected  to  conciliate  the  friendship  of  Austria, 
for  example,  by  declaring  that  any  one  who  is  disliked  by 
the  Emperor  of  Austria  shall  never  be  admitted  to  speech 
of  them.  If  Kossuth  had  come  as  the  professed  represen- 
tative of  an  established  government,  and  had  sought  an 
official  interview  with  Lord  Palmerston  in  that  capacity, 
then,  indeed,  it  would  have  been  proper  for  the  English 
Foreign  Secretary  to  refuse  to  receive  him.  Our  ministers 
with  perfect  propriety,  refused  to  receive  Mr.  Mason  and 
Mr.  Slidell,  the  emissaries  of  the  Southern  Confederation, 
as  official  representatives  of  any  state.  But  it  is  absurd  to 
suppose  that  when  the  civil  war  was  over  in  America  an 
English  statesman  in  office  would  be  bound  to  decline 
receiving  a  visit  from  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis.  We  know,  in 
fact,  that  the  ex-King  of  Naples,  the  ex-King  of  Hanover, 
Don  Carlos,  and  the  royal  representatives  of  various  lost 
causes,  are  constantly  received  by  English  ministers  and 
by  the  Queen  of  England,  and  no  representatives  of  many 
of  the  established  governments  would  think  of  offering  a 
remonstrance.  If  the  Emperor  of  Austria  was  likely  to 
be  o£fended  by  Lord  Palmerston's  receiving  a  visit  from 
Kossuth,  the  only  course  for  an  English  minister,  as  it 
seems  to  us,  was  to  leave  him  to  be  offended,  and  to  re- 
cover from  his  anger  whenever  he  chose  to  allow  common- 
sense  to  resume  possession  of  his  mind.  The  Queen  of 
England  might  as  well  have  taken  offence  at  the  action  of 
the  American  Government,  who  actually  gave,  not  merely 
private  receptions,  but  public  appointments,  to  Irish 
refugees  after  the  outbreak  of  1848. 

Lord  Palmerston,  however,  gave  way,  and  did  not  re- 
VoL.  I. — 2q 


450  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ceive  the  visit  from  Kossuth.  The  hoped-for  result,  that 
of  sparing  the  sensibilities  of  the  Austrian  Government, 
was  not  attained.  In  fact,  things  turned  out  a  great  deal 
worse  than  they  might  have  done  if  the  interview  between 
Lord  Palmerston  and  Kossuth  had  been  quietly  allowed 
to  come  off.  Meetings  were  held  to  express  sympathy 
with  Kossuth,  and  addresses  were  voted  to  Lord  Palmer- 
ston, thanking  him  for  the  influence  he  had  exerted  in 
preventing  the  surrender  of  Kossuth  to  Austria.  Lord 
Palmerston  consented  to  receive  these  addresses  from  the 
hands  of  deputations  at  the  Foreign  Office.  The  deputa- 
tions represented  certain  metropolitan  parishes,  and  were 
the  exponents  of  markedly  Radical  opinions.  Some  of  the 
addresses  contained  strong  language  with  reference  to  the 
Austrian  Government  and  the  Austrian  Sovereign.  Lord 
Palmerston  observed,  in  his  reply,  that  there  were  expres- 
sions contained  in  the  addresses  with  which  he  could  hardly 
be  expected  to  concur;  but  he  spoke  in  a  manner  which 
conveyed  the  idea  that  his  sympathies  generally  were  with 
the  cause  which  the  deputations  had  adopted.  This  was 
the  speech  containing  a  phrase  which  was  identified  with 
Palmerston's  name,  and  held  to  be  specially  characteristic 
of  his  way  of  speaking,  and  indeed  of  thinking,  for  many 
5'ears  after — in  fact,  to  the  close  of  his  career.  The  noble 
lord  told  the  deputation  that  the  past  crisis  was  one  which 
required  on  the  part  of  the  British  Government  much 
generalship  and  judgment;  and  that  "a  good  deal  of 
judicious  bottle-holding  was  obliged  to  be  brought  into 
play."  The  phrase  "bottle-holding,"  borrowed  from  the 
prize-ring,  offended  a  good  many  persons  who  thought  the 
past  crisis  far  too  grave,  and  the  issues  it  involved  too 
stern,  to  be  properly  described  in  language  of  such  levity. 
But  the  general  public  were  amused  and  delighted  by 
the  words,  and  the  judicious  bottle-holder  became  more  of 
a  popular  favorite  than  ever.  Some  of  the  published  re- 
ports put  this  a  good  deal  more  strongly  than  Lord 
Palmerston  did,  or  at  least  than  he  intended  to  do;  and  he 


Palmer  ston.  451 

always  insisted  that  he  said  no  more  to  the  deputations 
than  he  had  often  said  in  the  House  of  Commons;  and 
that  he  had  expressly  declared  he  could  not  concur  in  some 
of  the  expressions  contained  in  the  addresses.  Still,  the 
whole  proceeding  considerably  alarmed  some  of  Lord 
Palmerston's  colleagues,  and  was  regarded  with  distinct 
displeasure  by  the  Queen  and  Prince  Albert.  The  Queen 
specially  requested  that  the  matter  should  be  brought  be- 
fore a  cabinet  council.  Lord  John  Russell,  accordingly, 
laid  the  whole  question  before  his  colleagues,  and  the 
general  opinion  seemed  to  be  that  Lord  Palmerston  had 
acted  with  want  of  caution.  No  formal  resolution  was 
adopted.  It  was  thought  that  the  general  expression  of 
opinion  from  his  colleagues  and  the  known  displeasure  of 
the  Queen  would  be  enough  to  impress  the  necessity  for 
greater  prudence  on  the  mind  of  the  Foreign  Secretary. 
Lord  John  Russell,  in  communicating  with  her  Majesty  as 
to  the  proceedings  of  the  cabinet  council,  expressed  a  hope 
that  "it  will  have  its  effect  upon  Lord  Palmerston,  to 
whom  Lord  John  Russell  has  written  urging  the  necessity 
of  a  guarded  conduct  in  the  present  very  critical  condition 
of  Europe."  This  letter  was  not  written  when  startling 
evidence  was  on  its  way  to  show  that  the  irresistible  Foreign 
Secretary  had  been  making  a  stroke  off  his  own  bat  again, 
and  a  stroke  this  time  of  capital  importance  in  the  general 
game  of  European  politics.  The  possible  indiscretion  of 
Lord  Palmerston's  dealings  with  a  deputation  or  two  from 
Finsbury  and  Islington  became  a  matter  of  little  interest 
when  the  country  was  called  upon  to  consider  the  propriety 
of  the  Foreign  Secretary's  dealings  with  the  new  ruler  of 
a  new  state  system,  with  the  author  of  the  coup  d'etat. 

The  news  of  the  coup  d' etat  took  England  by  surprise. 
A  shock  went  through  the  whole  country.  Never,  prob- 
ably, was  public  opinion  more  unanimous,  for  the  hour  at 
least,  than  in  condemnation  of  the  stroke  of  policy  ven- 
tured on  by  Louis  Napoleon,  and  the  savage  manner  in 
which  it  was  carried  to  success.     After  a  while,  no  doubt, 


452  A  History  of  Oitr  Ozvn  Times. 

a  considerable  portion  of  the  English  public  came  to  look 
more  leniently  on  what  had  been  done.  Many  soon  grew 
accustomed  to  the  story  of  the  massacres  along  the  Bouie- . 
vards  of  Paris,  and  lost  all  sense  of  their  horror.  Some 
disposed  of  the  whole  affair  after  the  satisfactory  principle 
so  commonly  adopted  by  English  people  in  judging  of 
foreign  affairs,  and  assumed  that  the  system  introduced 
by  Louis  Napoleon  was  a  very  good  sort  of  thing — for  the 
French.  After  a  while  a  certam  admiration,  not  to  say 
adulation,  of  Louis  Napoleon  began  to  be  a  kind  of  faith 
with  many  Englishmen,  and  the  coi^p  d' etat  was  condoned 
and  even  approved  by  them.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  when  the  story  first  came  to  be  told  in  England,  the 
almost  universal  voice  of  opinion  condemned  it  as  strongly 
as  nearly  all  men  of  genuine  enlightenment  and  feeling 
condemned  it  then  and  since.  The  Queen  was  particularly 
anxious  that  nothing  should  be  said  by  the  British  ambas- 
sador to  commit  us  to  any  approval  of  what  had  been  done. 
On  December  4th  the  Queen  wrote  to  Lord  John  Russell 
from  Osborne  expressing  her  desire  that  Lord  Normanby, 
our  ambassador  at  Paris,  should  be  instructed  to  remain 
entirely  passive,  and  say  no  word  that  might  be  miscon- 
strued into  approval  of  the  action  of  the  Prince-President. 
The  cabinet  met  that  same  day,  and  decided  that  it  was 
expedient  to  follow  most  closely  her  Majesty's  instructions. 
But  they  decided  also,  and  very  properly,  that  there  was 
no  reason  for  Lord  Normanby  suspending  his  diplomatic 
functions.  Lord  Normanby  had,  in  fact,  applied  for  in- 
structions on  this  point.  Next  day  Lord  Palmerston,  as 
Foreign  Secretary,  wrote  to  Lord  Normanby,  informing 
him  that  he  was  to  make  no  change  in  his  diplomatic 
relations  with  the  French  Government.  Lord  Normanby's 
reply  to  this  despatch  created  a  startling  sensation.  Our 
ambassador  wrote  to  say  that  when  he  called  on  the 
French  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  to  inform  him  that 
he  had  been  instructed  by  her  Majesty's  Government  not 
to  make   any   change  in  his  relations    with    the   French 


Palmer  ston.  453 

Government,  the  Minister,  M.  Turgot,  told  him  that  he 
had  heard  two   days   before  from  Count  Walewski,   the 
French  ambassador  in  London,  that  Lord  Palmerston  had 
expressed  to  him  his  entire  approval  of  what  Louis  Napo- 
leon had  done,  and  his  conviction  that  the  Prince-President 
could  not  have  acted  otherwise.     It  would  not  be  easy  to 
exaggerate  the  sensation  produced  among  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  colleagues  by  this  astounding  piece  of  news.     The 
Queen  wrote  at  once  to  Lord  John  Russell,  asking  him  if 
he  knew  anything  about  the  approval  which  "the  French 
Government  pretend  to  have  received;"  declaring  that  she 
could  not  "  believe  in  the  truth  of  the  assertion,  as  such 
an  approval  given  by  Lord  Palmerston  would  have  been 
in  complete  contradiction  to  the  line  of  strict  neutrality 
and  passiveness  which  the  Queen  had  expressed  her  desire 
to   see  followed  with  regard  to  the  late  convulsions  at 
Paris."     Lord  John  Russell  replied  that  he  had  already 
written  to  Lord  Palmerston,  "saying  that  he  presumed 
there  was  no  truth  in  the  report."     The  reply  of  Lord 
Palmerston   was    delayed    for   what   Lord  John   Russell 
thought  an  unreasonable  length  of  time  at  such  a  crisis; 
but  when  it  came  it  left  no  doubt  that  Lord  Palmerston 
had  expressed  to  Count  Walewski  his  approval  of  the  coup 
d'etat.     Lord  Palmerston  observed,  indeed,  that  Walewski 
had  probably  given  to  M.  Turgot  a  somewhat  highly  col- 
ored report  of  what  he  had  said,  and  that  the  report  had 
lost  nothing  in  passing  from  M.  Turgot  to  Lord  Normanby ; 
but  the  substance  of  the  letter  was  a  full  admission  that 
Lord  Palmerston  approved  of  what  had  been  done,  and 
had   expressed   his   approval   to   Count   Walewski.     The 
letters  of  explanation  which  the  Foreign  Minister  wrote 
on  the  subject,  whether  to  Lord  Normanby  or  to  Lord 
John    Russell,    were  elaborate   justifications   of   the   coup 
ifc'tat;   they  were,  in  fact,   exactly  such  arguments  as  a 
minister  of  Louis  Napoleon  might  with  great  propriety 
address  to  a  foreign  Court.      They  were  full  of  an  undis- 
guised and  characteristic  contempt  for  any  one  who  could 


454  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

think  otherwise  on  the  subject  than  as  Lord  Palmerston 
thought.  In  replying  to  Lord  John  Russell  the  contempt 
was  expressed  in  a  quiet  sneer;  in  the  letters  to  Lord 
Normanby  it  was  obtrusively  and  offensively  put  forward. 
Lord  John  Russell  in  vain  endeavored  to  fasten  Palmer- 
ston's  attention  on  the  fact  that  the  question  was  not 
whether  the  action  of  Louis  Napoleon  was  historically 
justifiable,  but  whether  the  conduct  of  the  English  Foreign 
Minister,  in  expressing  approval  of  it  without  the  knowl- 
edge and  against  the  judgment  of  the  Queen  and  his  col- 
leagues, was  politically  justificable.  Lord  Palmerston 
simply  returned  to  his  defence  of  Louis  Napoleon,  and  his 
assertion  that  the  Prince-President  was  only  anticipating 
the  intrigues  of  the  Orleans  family  and  the  plans  of  the 
Assembly.  Lord  Palmerston,  indeed,  gave  a  very  minute 
account  of  a  plot  among  the  Orleans  princes  for  a  military 
rising  against  Louis  Napoleon.  No  evidence  of  the  exist- 
ence of  any  such  plot  has  ever  been  discovered.  Louis 
Napoleon  never  pleaded  the  existence  of  such  a  plot  in 
his  own  justification ;  it  is  now,  we  believe,  universally 
admitted  that  Lord  Palmerston  was  for  once  the  victim 
of  a  mere  canard.  But  even  if  there  had  been  an  Orleanist 
plot,  or  twenty  Orleanist  plots,  it  never  has  been  part  of 
the  duty  or  the  policy  of  an  English  Government  to  ex- 
press approval  of  anything  and  everything  that  a  foreign 
ruler  may  do  to  anticipate  or  put  down  a  plot  against 
him.  The  measures  may  be  unjustifiable  in  their  prin- 
ciple or  in  their  severity;  the  plot  may  be  of  insignificant 
importance,  utterly  inadequate  to  excuse  any  extraordi- 
nary measure.  The  Engli.sh  Government  is  not  in  ordi- 
nary cases  called  upon  to  express  any  opinion  whatever. 
It  had,  in  this  case,  deliberately  decided  that  all  expression 
of  opinion  should  be  scrupulously  avoided,  lest  by  any 
chance  the  French  Government  should  be  led  to  believe 
that  England  approved  of  what  had  been  done. 

Lord  Palmerston  endeavored  to  draw  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  expressions  of  a  Foreign  Secretary  in  conversa- 


Palmer  ston.  455 

tion  with  an  ambassador,  and  a  formal  declaration  of 
opinion.  But  it  is  clear  that  the  French  ambassador  did 
not  understand  Lord  Palmerston  to  be  merely  indulging 
in  the  irresponsible  gossip  of  private  life,  and  that  Lord 
Palmerston  never  said  a  word  to  impress  him  with  the 
belief  that  their  conversation  had  that  colorless  and  im- 
meaning  character.  In  any  case,  it  was  surely  a  piece  of 
singular  indiscretion  on  the  part  of  a  Foreign  Minister 
to  give  to  the  French  ambassador,  even  in  private  conver- 
sation, an  unqualified  opinion  in  favor  of  a  stroke  of  policy 
of  which  the  British  Government,  as  a  whole,  and  indeed 
with  the  one  exception  of  Lord  Palmerston,  entirely  dis- 
approved. To  give  such  an  opinion  without  qualification 
or  explanation  was  to  mislead  the  French  ambassador  in 
the  grossest  manner,  and  to  send  him  away,  as  in  fact  he 
was  sent,  under  the  impression  that  the  conduct  of  his  chief 
had  the  approval  of  the  Sovereign  and  Government  of 
England.  Let  it  be  remembered  further  that  the  Foreign 
Secretary  who  did  this  had  been  again  and  again  rebuked 
for  acting  on  his  own  responsibility,  for  saying  and  doing 
things  which  pledged,  or  seemed  to  pledge,  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  Government  without  any  authority,  that  a 
formal  threat  of  dismissal  actually  hung  over  his  head  in 
the  event  of  his  repeating  such  indiscretions,  and  we  shall 
be  better  able  to  form  some  idea  of  the  sensation  which 
was  created  in  England  by  the  revelation  of  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  conduct.  Many  of  his  colleagues  had  cordially 
sympathized  with  his  views  on  the  occasion  of  former 
indiscretions;  and  even  while  admitting  that  he  had  been 
indiscreet,  yet  acknowledged  to  themselves  that  their 
opinion  on  the  broad  question  involved  was  not  different 
from  his.  But  even  these  drew  back  from  any  approval 
of  his  conduct  in  regard  to  the  coup  d'etat.  The  almost 
imiversal  judgment  was  that  he  had  gone  surprisingly 
wrong.  Not  a  few,  finding  it  impossible  to  account  other- 
wise for  such  a  proceeding,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he 
must  have  been  determined  somehow  to  bring  about  a 


456  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

rupture  with  his  colleagues  of  the  cabinet,  and  had  chosen 
this  high-handed  assertion  of  his  will  as  the  best  means 
of  flinging  his  defiance  in  their  teeth. 

Lord  John  Russell  made  up  his  mind.  He  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  could  no  longer  go  on  with  Lord 
Palmerston  as  a  colleague  in  the  Foreign  Office,  and  he 
signified  his  decision  to  Lord  Palmerston  himself.  "  While 
I  concur,"  thus  Lord  John  Russell  wrote,  "in  the  foreign 
policy  of  which  you  have  been  the  adviser,  and  much  as 
I  admire  the  energy  and  ability  with  which  it  has  been 
carried  into  effect,  I  cannot  but  observe  that  misunderstand- 
ings perpetually  renewed,  violations  of  prudence  and 
decorum  too  frequently  repeated,  have  marred  the  effects 
which  ought  to  have  followed  from  a  sound  policy  and 
able  administration.  I  am,  therefore,  most  reluctantly 
compelled  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  conduct  of 
foreign  affairs  can  no  longer  be  left  in  your  hands  with 
advantage  to  the  country."  Rather  unfortunately.  Lord 
John  Russell  endeavored  to  soften  the  blow  by  offering, 
if  Lord  Palmerston  should  be  willing,  to  recommend  him 
to  the  Queen  to  fill  the  office  of  Lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland. 
This  was  a  proposal  which  we  agree  with  Mr.  Evelyn 
Ashley,  Lord  Palmerston 's  biographer,  in  regarding  as 
almost  comical  in  its  character.  Lord  Palmerston's  whole 
soul  was  in  foreign  affairs.  He  had  never  affected  any 
particular  interest  in  Irish  business.  He  cared  little  even 
for  the  home  politics  of  England ;  it  was  out  of  the  question 
to  suppose  that  he  would  consent  to  bury  himself  in  the 
Viceregal  Court  of  Dublin,  and  occupy  his  diplomatic 
talents  in  composing  disputes  for  precedence  between 
Protestant  deans  and  Catholic  bishops,  and  in  doling  out 
the  due  proportion  of  invitations  to  the  various  ranks  of 
aspiring  traders  and  shopkeepers  and  their  wives.  Lord 
Palmerston  declined  the  offer  with  open  contempt,  and, 
indeed,  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  Lord 
John  Russell  expected  he  would  have  seriously  entertained 
it.     The  quarrel  was  complete;  Lord  Palmerston  ceased 


Palmerston.  437 

for  the  time  to  be  Foreign  Secretary,  and  his  place  was 
taken  by  Lord  Granville. 

Seldom  has  a  greater  sensation  been  produced  by  the 
removal  of  a  minister.  The  effect  which  was  created  all 
over  Europe  was  probably  just  what  Lord  Palmerston 
himself  would  have  desired;  the  belief  prevailed  every- 
where that  he  had  been  sacrificed  to  the  monarchical  and 
reactionary  influences  all  over  the  Continent.  The  states- 
men of  Europe  were  imder  the  impression  that  Lord 
Palmerston  was  put  out  of  oihce  as  an  evidence  that  Eng- 
land was  about  to  withdraw  from  her  former  attitude  of 
sympathy  with  the  popular  movements  of  the  Continent. 
Lord  Palmerston  himself  fell  under  a  delusion  which  seems 
marvellous  in  a  man  possessed  of  his  clear,  strong  com- 
mon-sense. He  conceived  that  he  had  been  sacrificed  to 
reactionary  intrigue.  He  wrote  to  his  brother  to  say  that 
the  real  ground  for  his  dismissal  was  a  "  weak  truckling  to 
the  hostile  intrigues  of  the  Orleans  family,  Austria,  Rus- 
sia, Saxony,  and  Bavaria,  and,  in  some  degree,  of  the 
present  Prussian  Government."  "All  these  parties,"  he 
said,  "found  their  respective  views  and  systems  of  policy 
thwarted  by  the  course  pursued  by  the  British  Government, 
and  they  thought  that  if  they  could  remove  the  minister 
they  would  change  the  policy.  They  had,  for  a  long  time 
past,  effectually  poisoned  the  mind  of  the  Queen  and 
Prince  against  me,  and  John  Russell  giving  way  rather 
encouraged  than  discountenanced  the  desire  of  the  Queen 
to  remove  me  from  the  Foreign  Office."  So  strongly  did 
the  idea  prevail  that  an  intrigue  of  foreign  diplomatists 
had  overthrown  Palmerston,  that  the  Russian  ambassador. 
Baron  Brunnow,  took  the  very  ill-advised  step  of  address- 
ing to  Lord  John  Russell  a  disclaimer  of  any  participation 
in  such  a  proceeding.  The  Queen  made  a  proper  com- 
ment on  the  letter  of  Baron  Brunnow  by  describing  it  as 
"very  presuming,"  inasmuch  as  it  insinuated  the  possi- 
bility "  of  changes  of  governments  in  this  country  taking 
place    at   the   instigation    of    foreign    ministers."     Lord 


458  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

i 

Palmerston  was,  of  course,  entirely  mistaken  in  suppoeing 
that  any  foreign  interference  had  contributed  to  his  re- 
moval from  the  Foreign  Office.  The  only  wonder  is  how 
a  man  so  experienced  as  he  could  have  convinced  himself 
of  such  a  thing;  at  least  it  would  be  a  wonder  if  one  did 
not  know  that  the  most  experienced  author  or  artist  can 
always  persuade  himself  that  a  disparaging  critique  is  the 
result  of  personal  and  malignant  hostility.  But  that  the 
feeling  of  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  had  long  been  against 
him  can  hardly  admit  of  dispute.  Prince  Albert  seems 
not  to  have  taken  any  pains  to  conceal  his  dislike  and  dis- 
trust of  Palmerston.  Nearly  two  years  before,  when  the 
French  ambassador  was  recalled  for  a  time,  the  Prince 
wrote  to  Lord  John  Russell  to  say  that  both  the  Queen 
and  himself  were  exceedingly  sorry  to  hear  of  the  recall ; 
adding,  "  We  are  not  surprised,  however,  that  Lord 
Palmerston's  mode  of  doing  business  should  not  be  borne 
by  the  susceptible  French  Government  with  the  same 
good-humor  and  forbearance  as  by  his  colleagues."  At 
the  moment  when  Lord  John  Russell  resolved  on  getting 
rid  of  Lord  Palmerston,  Prince  Albert  wrote  to  him  to 
say  that  "  the  sudden  termination  of  your  difference  with 
Lord  Palmerston  has  taken  us  much  by  surprise,  as  we 
were  wont  to  see  such  differences  terminate  in  his  carry- 
ing his  points,  and  leaving  the  defence  of  them  to  his 
colleagues,  and  the  discredit  to  the  Queen."  It  is  clear 
from  this  letter  alone  that  the  court  was  set  against 
Lord  Palmerston  at  that  time.  The  court  was  sometimes 
right  where  Palmerston  was  wrong;  but  the  fact  that  he 
then  knew  himself  to  be  in  antagonism  to  the  court  is 
of  importance  both  in  judging  of  his  career  and  in  esti- 
mating the  relative  strength  of  forces  in  the  politics  of 
England. 

Lord  Palmerston  then  was  dismissed.  The  meeting  of 
Parliament  took  place  on  the  3d  of  February  following, 
1852.  It  would  be  superfluous  to  say  that  the  keenest 
anxiety  was  felt  to  know  the  full  reasons  of  the  sudden 


Palmerston. 


459 


dismissal.     To  quote  the  words  used  by  Mr.   Roebuck, 
"  The   most   marked   person    in   the   Administration,   he  j 

around  whom  all  the  party  battles  of  the  Administration  ''■ 

had  been  fought,  whose  political  existence  had  been  made  i 

the  political  existence  of  the  Government  itself,  the  person  i 

on  whose   being   in  office  the  Government   rested   their  j 

existence  as  a  government,   was  dismissed;    their  right  : 

hand  was  cut  off,  their  most  powerful  arm  was  taken  away,  : 

and  at  the  critical  time  when  it  was  most  needed."     The 
House  of  Commons  was  not  long  left  to  wait  for  an  ex-  j 

planation.     Lord  John    Russell  made  a  long  speech,  in  j 

which  he  went  into  the  whole  history  of  the  differences  | 

between  Lord  Palmerston  and  his  colleagues;  and,  what  i 

was  more  surprising  to  the  House,  into  a  history  of  the 
late  Foreign  Secretary's  differences  with  his  Sovereign,  ' 

and  the  threat  of  dismissal  which  had  so  long  been  hang-  : 

ing  over  his  head.     The  Prime-minister  read  to  the  House  j 

the  Queen's  memorandum,  which  we  have  already  quoted.  ' 

Lord  John  Russell's  speech  was  a  great  success.     Lord  i 

Palmerston 's  was,  even  in  the  estimation  of  his  closest  ; 

friends,  a  failure.     Far  different,  indeed,  was  the  effect  it  : 

produced  from  the  almost  magical  influence  of  that  wonder-  ; 

f  ul  speech  on  the  "  Don  Pacifico"  question,  which  had  com-  i 

pelled  even  unconvinced  opponents  to  genuine  admiration.  \ 

Palmerston  seemed  to  have  practically  no  defence.     He 
only  went  over  again  the  points  put  by  him  in  the  corre-  \ 

spondence  already  noticed ;  contended  that,  on  the  whole,  i 

he  had  judged  rightly  of  the  French  crisis,  and  that  he  ] 

could  not  help  forming  an  opinion  on  it,  and  so  forth.     Of  ! 

the  Queen's  memorandum  he  said  nothing.  He  did  not 
even  attempt  to  explain  how  it  came  about  that,  having 
received  so  distinct  and  severe  an  injunction,  he  had  ven- 
tured deliberately  to  disregard  it  in  a  matter  of  the  great- 
est national  importance.  Some  of  his  admirers  were  of  i 
opinion  then,  and  long  after,  that  the  reading  of  the  | 
memorandum  must  have  come  on  him  by  surprise;  that 
Lord  John  Russell  must  have  sprung  a  mine  upon  him ;                 I 

i 


I 


460  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

and  that  Palmerston  was  taken  unfairly  and  at  a  disad- 
vantage. But  it  is  certain  that  Lord  John  Russell  gave 
notice  to  his  late  colleague  of  his  intention  to  read  the 
memorandum  of  the  Queen.  Besides,  Lord  Palmerston 
was  one  of  the  most  ready  and  self-possessed  speakers  that 
ever  addressed  the  House  of  Commons.  During  the  very 
reading  of  the  memorandum  he  could  have  found  time  to 
arrange  his  ideas,  and  to  make  out  some  show  of  a  case 
for  himself.  The  truth,  we  believe,  is  that  Lord  Palmer- 
ston deliberately  declined  to  make  any  reply  to  that  part  of 
Lord  John  Russell's  speech  which  disclosed  the  letter  from 
the  Queen.  He  made  up  his  mind  that  a  dispute  between 
a  sovereign  and  a  subject  would  be  unbecoming  of  both,  and 
he  passed  over  the  memorandum  in  deliberate  silence. 
He  doubtless  felt  convinced  that,  even  though  such  dis- 
cretion involved  him  for  the  moment  in  seeming  defeat, 
it  would  in  the  long  run  reckon  to  his  credit  and  his  ad- 
vantage. Lord  Bailing,  better  known  as  Sir  Henry  Bul- 
wer,  was  present  during  the  debate,  and  formed  an  opinion 
of  Palmerston's  conduct  which  seems  in  every  way  correct 
and  far-seeing.  "  I  must  say,"  Lord  Bailing  writes,  "  that 
I  never  admired  him  so  much  as  at  this  crisis.  He  evi- 
dently thought  he  had  been  ill-treated;  but  I  never  heard 
him  make  an  unfair  or  irritable  remark,  nor  did  he  seem 
in  any  wise  stunned  by  the  blow  he  had  received,  or 
dismayed  by  the  isolated  position  in  which  he  stood.  I 
should  say  that  he  seemed  to  consider  that  he  had  a  quar- 
rel put  upon  him  which  it  was  his  wisest  course  to  close 
by  receiving  the  fire  of  his  adversary  and  not  returning  it. 
He  could  not,  in  fact,  have  gained  a  victory  against  the 
Premier  on  the  ground  which  Lord  John  Russell  had 
chosen  for  the  combat,  which  would  not  have  been  more 
permanently  disadvantageous  to  him  than  a  defeat.  The 
faults  of  which  he  had  accused  him  did  not  touch  his  own 
honor  nor  that  of  his  country.  Let  them  be  admitted,  and 
there  was  an  end  of  the  matter.  By  and  by  an  occasion 
would  probably  arise  in  which  he  might  choose  an  advan- 


Palmerston.  46 1 

tageous  occasion  for  giving  battle,   and  he  was    willing 
to  wait  calmly  for  that  occasion." 

Lord  Balling  judged  accurately  so  far  as  his  judgment 
went.  But  while  we  agree  with  him  in  thinking  that 
Lord  Palmerston  refrained  from  returning  his  adversary's 
fire  for  the  reasons  Lord  Bailing  has  given,  we  are  strongly 
of  opinion  that  other  reasons  too  influenced  Palmerston. 
He  knew  that  he  was  not  at  that  time  much  liked  or 
trusted  by  the  Queen  and  Prince  Albert.  He  was  not 
sorry  that  the  fact  should  be  made  known  to  the  world. 
He  thoroughly  understood  English  public  opinion,  and 
was  not  above  taking  advantage  of  its  moods  and  its  prej- 
udices. He  did  not  think  a  statesman  would  stand  any 
the  worse  in  the  general  estimation  of  the  English  public, 
then,  because  it  was  known  that  he  was  not  admired  by 
Prince  Albert. 

But  the  almost  universal  opinion  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons and  of  the  clubs  was  that  Lord  Palmerston's  career 
was  closed.  "Palmerston  is  smashed!"  was  the  common 
saying  of  the  clubs.  A  night  or  two  after  the  debate  Lord 
Balling  met  Mr.  Bisraeli  on  the  staircase  of  the  Russian 
Embassy,  and  Bisraeli  remarked  to  him  that  "  there  was 
a  Palmerston." 

Lord  Palmerston  evidently  did  not  think  so.  The  let- 
ters he  wrote  to  friends  immediately  after  his  fall  show 
him  as  jaunty  and  full  of  confidence  as  ever.  He  was 
quite  satisfied  with  the  way  things  had  gone.  He  waited 
calmly  for  what  he  called,  a  few  days  afterward,  "  my  tit- 
for-tat  with  John  Russell,"  which  came  about,  indeed, 
sooner  than  even  he  himself  could  well  have  expected. 

We  have  not  hesitated  to  express  our  opinion  that 
throughout  the  whole  of  this  particular  dispute  Lord 
Palmerston  was  in  the  wrong.  He  was  in  the  wrong  in 
many,  if  not  most,  of  the  controversies  which  had  pre- 
ceded it;  that  is  to  say,  he  was  wrong  in  committing 
England,  as  he  so  often  did,  to  measures  which  had  not 
had  the  approval  of  the  Sovereign  or  his  colleagues.     Iq, 


462  A  History  of  Ottr  Own  Times. 

the  memorable  dispute  which  brought  matters  to  a  crisis 
he  seems  to  us  to  have  been  in  the  wrong  not  less  in  what 
he  did  than  in  his  manner  of  doing  it.  Yet  it  ought  not 
to  have  been  difficult  for  a  calm  observer,  even  at  the 
time,  to  see  that  Lord  Palmerston  was  likely  to  have  the 
best  of  the  controversy  in  the  end.  The  faults  of  which 
he  was  principally  accused  were  not  such  as  the  English 
people  would  find  it  very  hard  to  forgive.  He  was  said 
to  be  too  brusque  and  high-handed  in  his  dealings  with 
foreign  states  and  ministers;  but  it  did  not  seem  to  the 
English  people  in  general  as  if  this  was  an  offence  for 
which  his  own  countrymen  were  bound  to  condemn  him 
too  severely.  There  was  a  general  impression  that  his 
influence  was  exercised  on  behalf  of  popular  movements 
pbroad;  and  an  impression  nearly  as  general  that  if  he 
had  not  acted  a  good  deal  on  his  own  impulses  and  of  his 
own  authority  he  could  hardly  have  served  any  popular 
cause  so  well.  The  coup  d'tHat  certainly  was  not  popular 
in  England.  For  a  long  time  it  was  a  subject  of  general 
reprehension  ;  but  even  at  that  time  men  who  condemned 
the  r^///^/'r?<?^  were  not  disposed  to  condemn  Lord  Palmer- 
ston overmuch  because,  acting  as  usual  on  a  personal  im- 
pulse, he  had  in  that  instance  made  a  mistake.  There 
was  even  in  his  error  something  dashing,  showy,  and 
captivating  to  the  general  public.  He  made  the  influence 
of  England  felt,  people  said.  His  chief  fault  was  that  he 
was  rather  too  strong  for  those  around  him.  If  any  grave 
crisis  came,  he,  it  was  murmured,  and  he  alone,  would  be 
equal  to  the  occasion,  and  would  maintain  the  dignity  of 
England.  Neither  in  war  nor  in  statesmanship  does  a  man 
suffer  much  loss  of  popularity  by  occasionally  disobeying 
orders  and  accomplishing  daring  feats.  Lord  Palmerston 
saw  his  way  clearly  at  a  critical  period  of  his  career.  He 
saw  that  at  that  time  there  was,  rightly  or  wrongly,  a  cer- 
tain jealousy  of  the  influence  of  Prince  Albert,  and  he  did 
not  hesitate  to  take  advantage  of  the  fact.  He  bore  his 
temporary  disgrace  with  well-justified  composure.     "  The 


Palmerston.  46} 

devil  aids  him,  surely,"  said  Sussex,  speaking  to  Raleigh 
of  Leicester  in  Scott's  "  Kenilworth,"  "for  all  that  would 
sink  another  ten  fathom  deep  seems  but  to  make  him  float 
the  more  easily  "  Some  rival  may  have  thought  thus  of 
Lord  Palmerston. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


BIRTH    OF    THE    EMPIRE;    DEATH    OF       THE    DUKE. 


»» 


The  year  1852  was  one  of  profound  emotion  and  even 
excitement  in  England.  An  able  writer  has  remarked 
that  the  history  of  the  Continent  of  Europe  might  be  traced 
through  the  history  of  England,  if  all  other  sources  of 
information  were  destroyed,  by  the  influence  which  every 
great  event  in  Continental  affairs  produces  on  the  mood 
and  policy  of  England.  As  the  astronomer  infers  the 
existence  and  the  attributes  of  some  star  his  keenest  glass 
will  not  reveal  by  the  perturbations  its  neighborhood 
causes  to  some  body  of  light  within  his  ken,  so  the  student 
of  English  history  might  well  discover  commotion  on  the 
Continent  by  the  evidence  of  a  corresponding  movement 
in  England.  All  through  the  year  1852  the  national 
mind  of  England  was  disturbed.  The  country  was  stirring 
itself  in  quite  an  unusual  manner.  A  military  spirit  was 
exhibiting  itself  everywhere,  not  unlike  that  told  of  in 
Shakespeare's  "  Henry  the  Fourth. "  The  England  of  1852 
seems  to  threaten  that  "  ere  this  year  expire  we  bear  our 
civil  swords  and  native  fire  as  far  as  France."  At  least 
the  civil  swords  were  sharpened  in  order  that  the  country 
might  be  ready  for  a  possible  and  even  an  anticipated 
invasion  from  France.  The  Volunteer  movement  sprang 
into  sudden  existence.  All  over  the  country  corps  of 
young  volunteers  were  being  formed.  An  immense 
amount  of  national  enthusiasm  accompanied  and  acclaimed 
the  formation  of  the  volunteer  army,  which  received  the 
sanction  of  the  Crown  early  in  the  year,  and  thus  became 
a  national  institution. 

The  meaning  of  all  this  movement  was  explained  some 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  DiLke.*'     465 

years  after  by  Mr.  Tennyson,  in  a  string  of  verses  which 
did  more  honor  perhaps  to  his  patriotic  feeling  than  to  his 
poetic  genius.  The  verses  are  absurdly  unworthy  of 
Tennyson  as  a  poet ;  but  they  express  with  unmistakable 
clearness  the  popular  sentiment  of  the  hour;  the  condition 
of  uncertainty,  vague  alarm,  and  very  general  determina- 
tion to  be  ready  at  all  events  for  whatever  might  come. 
"Form,  form,  riflemen,  form!"  wrote  the  Laureate; 
"  better  a  rotten  borough  or  two  than  a  rotten  fleet  and  a 
town  in  flames."  "True  that  we  have  a  faithful  ally, 
but  only  the  devil  knows  what  he  means."  This  was  the 
alarm  and  the  explanation.  We  had  a  faithful  ally,  no 
doubt;  but  we  certainly  did  not  quite  know  what  he 
meant.  All  the  earlier  part  of  the  year  had  witnessed  the 
steady  progress  of  the  Prince-President  of  France  to  an 
imperial  throne.  The  previous  year  had  closed  upon  his 
coup  d'etat.  He  had  arrested,  imprisoned,  banished,  or 
shot  his  principal  enemies,  and  had  demanded  from  the 
French  people  a  Presidency  for  ten  years — a  ministry 
responsible  to  the  executive  power — himself  alone — and 
two  political  Chambers  to  be  elected  b)^  universal  suffrage. 
Nearly  five  hundred  prisoners,  untried  before  any  tribunal, 
even  that  of  a  drumhead,  had  been  shipped  off  to  Cayenne. 
The  streets  of  Paris  had  been  soaked  in  blood.  The  Presi- 
dent instituted  o.  plebiscite,  or  vote  of  the  whole  people,  and 
of  course  he  got  all  he  asked  for.  There  was  no  arguing 
with  the  commander  of  twenty  legions,  and  of  such  legions 
as  those  that  had  operated  with  terrible  efficiency  on  the 
Boulevards.  The  first  day  of  the  new  year  saw  the  relig- 
ious ceremony  at  Notre  Dame  to  celebrate  the  acceptance 
of  the  ten  years'  Presidency  by  Louis  Napoleon.  The 
same  day  a  decree  was  published  in  the  name  of  the  Presi- 
dent declaring  that  the  French  eagle  should  be  restored  to 
the  standards  of  the  army,  as  a  symbol  of  the  regenerated 
military  genius  of  France.  A  few  days  after,  the  Prince- 
President  decreed  the  confiscation  of  the  property  of  the 
Orleans  family  and  restored  titles  of  nobility  in  France. 
Vol.  I. — 30  -_  ' 


^66  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

The  birthday  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  was  declared  by 
decree. to  be  the  only  national  holiday.  When  the  two 
legislative  bodies  came  to  be  sworn  in,  the  President  made 
an  announcement  which  certainly  did  not  surprise  many 
persons,  but  which  nevertheless  sent  a  thrill  abroad  over 
all  parts  of  Europe.  If  hostile  parties  continued  to  plot 
against  him,  the  President  intimated,  and  to  question  the 
legitimacy  of  the  power  he  had  assumed  by  virtue  of  the 
national  vote,  then  it  might  be  necessary  to  demand  from 
the  people,  in  the  name  of  the  repose  of  France,  "  a  new 
title  which  will  irrevocably  fix  upon  my  head  the  power 
with  which  they  have  invested  me."  There  could  be  no 
further  doubt.  The  Bonapartist  Empire  was  to  be  restored. 
A  new  Napoleon  was  to  come  to  the  throne. 

"Only  the  devil  knows  what  he  means,"  indeed.  So 
people  were  all  saying  throughout  England  in  1852.  The 
scheme  went  on  to  its  development,  and  before  the  year 
was  quite  out  Louis  Napoleon  was  proclaimed  Emperor  of 
the  French.  Men  had  noticed  as  a  curious,  not  to  say 
ominous,  coincidence  that  on  the  very  day  when  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  died  the  Moniteur  annoimced  that  the  French 
people  were  receiving  the  Prince-President  everywhere  as 
the  Emperor-elect,  and  as  the  elect  of  God ;  and  another 
French  journal  published  an  article  hinting,  not  obscurely, 
at  the  invasion  and  conquest  of  England  as  the  first  great 
duty  of  anew  Napoleonic  Empire.  The  Prince-President, 
indeed,  in  one  of  the  provincial  speeches  which  he  deliv- 
ered just  before  he  was  proclaimed  Emperor,  had  talked 
earnestly  of  peace.  In  his  famous  speech  to  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  of  Bordeaux  on  October  9th,  he  denied  that 
the  restored  Empire  would  mean  war.  "I  say,"  he  de- 
clared, raising  his  voice  and  speaking  with  energy  and 
emphasis,  "the  Empire  is  peace."  But  the  assurance  did 
not  do  much  to  satisfy  Europe.  Had  not  the  same  voice, 
it  was  asked,  declaimed  with  equal  energy  and  earnestness 
the  terms  of  the  oath  to  the  Republican  Constitution? 
Never,  said  a  bitter  enemy  of  the  new  Empire,  believe  the 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  Duke."      467 

word  of  a  Bonaparte,  unless  when  he  promises  to  kill 
somebody.  Such  was,  indeed,  the  common  sentiment  of 
a  large  number  of  the  English  people  during  the  eventful 
year  when  the  President  became  Emperor,  and  Prince 
Louis  Napoleon  was  Napoleon  the  Third. 

It  would  have  been  impossible  that  the  English  people 
could  view  all  this  without  emotion  and  alarm.  It  had 
been  clearly  seen  how  the  Prince-President  had  carried  his 
point  thus  far.  He  had  appealed  at  every  step  to  the 
memory  of  the  Napoleonic  legend.  He  had  in  every  pos- 
sible way  revived  and  reproduced  the  attributes  of  the 
reign  of  the  Great  Emperor.  His  accession  to  power  was 
strictly  a  military  and  a  Napoleonic  triumph.  In  ordinary 
circumstances  the  English  people  would  not  have  troubled 
themselves  much  about  any  change  in  the  form  of  govern- 
ment of  a  foreign  country.  They  might  have  felt  a  strong 
dislike  for  the  manner  in  which  such  a  change  had  been 
brought  about ;  but  it  would  have  been  in  no  wise  a  matter 
of  personal  concern  to  them.  But  they  could  not  see  with 
indifference  the  rise  of  a  new  Napoleon  to  power  on  the 
strength  of  the  old  Napoleonic  legend.  The  one  special 
characteristic  of  the  Napoleonic  principle  was  its  hostility 
to  England.  The  life  of  the  Great  Napoleon  in  its  great- 
est days  had  been  devoted  to  the  one  purpose  of  humiliat- 
ing England.  His  plans  had  been  foiled  by  England. 
Whatever  hands  may  have  joined  in  pressing  him  to  the 
ground,  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  he  owed  his  fall 
principally  to  England.  He  died  a  prisoner  of  England, 
and  with  his  hatred  of  her  embittered  rather  than  appeased. 
It  did  not  seem  unreasonable  to  believe  that  the  successor 
who  had  been  enabled  to  mount  the  Imperial  throne  simply 
because  he  bore  the  name  and  represented  the  principles 
of  the  First  Napoleon  would  inherit  the  hatred  to  England 
and  the  designs  against  England.  Everything  else  that 
savored  of  the  Napoleonic  era  had  been  revived ;  why 
should  this,  its  principal  characteristic,  be  allowed  to  lie 
in  the  tomb  of  the  First  Emperor?     The  policy  of  the  First 


468  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Napoleon  had  lighted  up  a  fire  of  hatred  between  England 
and  France  which  at  one  time  seemed  inextinguishable. 
There  were  many  who  regarded  that  international  hate  as 
something  like  that  of  the  hostile  brothers  in  the  classic 
story,  the  very  flames  of  whose  fimeral  piles  refused  to 
mingle  in  the  air;  or  like  that  of  the  rival  Scottish  fami- 
lies, whose  blood,  it  was  said,  would  never  commingle 
though  poured  into  one  dish.  It  did  not  seem  possible 
that  a  new  Emperor  Napoleon  could  arise  without  bring- 
ing a  restoration  of  that  hatred  along  with  him. 

There  were  some  personal  reasons,  too,  for  particular 
distrust  of  the  upcoming  Emperor  among  the  English  peo- 
ple. Louis  Napoleon  had  lived  many  years  in  England. 
He  was  as  well  known  there  as  any  prominent  member  of 
the  English  aristocracy.  He  went  a  good  deal  into  very 
various  society,  literary,  artistic,  merely  fashionable, 
purely  rowdy,  as  well  as  into  that  political  society  which 
might  have  seemed  natural  to  him.  In  all  circles  the  same 
opinion  appears  to  have  been  formed  of  him.  From  the 
astute  Lord  Palmerston  to  the  most  ignorant  of  the  horse- 
jockeys  and  ballet-girls  with  whom  he  occasionally  con- 
sorted, all  who  met  him  seemed  to  think  of  the  Prince  in 
much  the  same  way.  It  was  agreed  on  all  hands  that  he 
was  a  fatuous,  dreamy,  moony,  impracticable,  stupid  young 
man.  A  sort  of  stolid  amiability,  not  enlightened  enough 
to  keep  him  out  of  low  company  and  questionable  conduct, 
appeared  to  be  his  principal  characteristic.  He  constantly 
talked  of  his  expected  accession  somehow  and  some  time 
to  the  throne  of  France,  and  people  only  smiled  pityingly 
at  him.  His  attempts  at  Strasburg  and  Boulogne  had 
covered  him  with  ridicule  and  contempt.  We  cannot  re- 
member one  authentic  account  of  any  Englishman  of 
mark  at  that  time  having  professed  to  see  any  evi- 
dence of  capacity  and  strength  of  mind  in  Prince  Louis 
Napoleon. 

When  t\\ecotip  a<ftat  came  and  was  successful,  the  amaze- 
ment of  the  English  public  was  unbounded.     Never  had 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "T/je  Duke.'*      469 

any  plot  been  more  skilfully  and  more  carefully  planned, 
more  daringly  carried  out.  Here  evidently  was  a  master 
in  the  art  of  conspiracy.  Here  was  the  combination  of 
steady  caution  and  boundless  audacity.  What  a  subtlety 
of  design  ;  what  a  perfection  of  silent  self-control !  How 
slowly  the  plan  had  been  matured;  how  suddenly  it  was 
flashed  upon  the  world  and  carried  to  success !  No  haste, 
no  delay,  no  scruple,  no  remorse,  no  fear  I  And  all  this 
was  the  work  of  the  dull  dawdler  of  English  drawing 
rooms;  the  heavy,  apathetic,  unmoral  rather  than  im- 
moral haunter  of  English  race-courses  and  gambling- 
houses!  What  new  surprise  might  not  be  feared,  what 
subtle  and  daring  enterprise  might  not  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected, from  one  who  could  thus  conceal  and  thus  reveal 
himself,  and  do  both  with  a  like  success! 

Louis  Napoleon,  said  a  member  of  his  family,  deceived 
Europe  twice:  first  when  he  succeeded  in  passing  off  as  an 
idiot,  and  next  when  he  succeeded  in  passing  off  as  a 
statesman.  The  epigram  had  doubtless  a  great  deal  of 
truth  in  it.  The  rouJ>  d'etat  was  probably  neither  planned 
nor  carried  to  success  by  the  cleverness  and  energy  of 
Louis  Napoleon.  Cooler  and  stronger  heads  and  hands 
are  responsible  for  the  execution  at  least  of  that  enterprise. 
The  Prince,  it  is  likely,  played  little  more  than  a  passive 
part  in  it,  and  might  have  lost  his  nerve  more  than  once 
but  for  the  greater  resolution  of  some  of  his  associates, 
who  were  determined  to  crown  him  for  their  own  sakes  as 
well  as  for  his.  But  at  the  time  the  world  at  large  saw 
only  Louis  Napoleon  in  the  whole  scheme,  conception,  ex- 
ecution, and  all.  The  idea  was  formed  of  a  colossal  figure 
of  cunning  and  daring — a  Brutus,  a  Talleyrand,  a  Philip  of 
Spain,  and  a  Napoleon  the  First,  all  in  one.  Those  who 
detested  him  most  admired  and  feared  him  not  the  least. 
Who  can  doubt,  it  was  asked,  that  he  will  endeavor  to 
make  himself  the  heir  of  the  revenges  of  Napoleon?  Who 
can  believe  any  pledges  he  may  give?  How  enter  into 
anjr  treaty  or  bond  of  any  kind  with  such  a  man?     Where 


470  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

is  the  one  that  can  pretend  to  say  he  sees  through  him  and 
understands  his  schemes? 

Had  Louis  Napoleon  any  intention  at  any  time  of  in- 
vading England?  We  are  inclined  to  believe  that  he 
never  had  a  regular  fixed  plan  of  the  kind.  But  we  are 
also  inclined  to  think  that  the  project  entered  into  his 
mind,  with  various  other  ideas  and  plans  more  or  less 
vague,  and  that  circumstances  might  have  developed  it 
into  an  actual  scheme.  Louis  Napoleon  was,  above  all 
things,  a  man  of  ideas  in  the  inferior  sense  of  the  word ; 
that  is  to  say,  he  was  always  occupying  himself  with 
vague,  dreamy  suggestions  of  plans  that  might  in  this, 
that,  or  the  other  case  be  advantageously  pursued.  He 
had  come  to  power  probably  with  the  determination  to 
keep  it,  and  make  himself  acceptable  to  France  first  of  all. 
After  this  came,  doubtless,  the  sincere  desire  to  make 
France  great  and  powerful  and  prosperous.  At  first  he 
had  no  particular  notion  of  the  way  to  establish  himself  as 
a  popular  ruler,  and  it  is  certain  that  he  turned  over  all 
manner  of  plans  in  his  mind  for  the  purpose.  Among 
these  must  certainly  have  been  one  for  the  invasion  of 
England  and  the  avenging  of  Waterloo.  He  let  drop  hints 
at  times  which  showed  that  he  was  thinking  of  something 
of  the  kind.  He  talked  of  himself  as  representing  a  de- 
feat. He  was  attacked  with  all  the  bitterness  of  a  not  un- 
natural but  very  unrestrained  animosity  in  the  English 
press  for  his  conduct  in  the  coup  d'etat  j  and  no  doubt  he 
and  his  companions  were  greatly  exasperated.  The  mood 
of  a  large  portion  of  the  French  people  was  distinctly  ag- 
gressive. Ashamed  to  some  degree  of  much  that  had  been 
done  and  that  they  had  had  to  suffer,  many  Frenchmen 
were  in  that  state  of  dissatisfaction  with  themselves  which 
makes  people  eager  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  some  one  else. 
Had  Louis  Napoleon  been  inclined,  he  might  doubtless 
have  easily  stirred  his  people  to  the  war  mood;  and  it  is 
not  to  be  believed  that  he  did  not  occasionally  contemplate 
the  expediency  of  doing  something  of  the  kind.     Assur- 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  Duke."     471 

edly,  if  he  had  thought  such  an  enterprise  necessary  to  the 
stability  of  his  reign,  he  would  have  risked  even  a  war 
with  England.  But  it  would  not  have  been  tried  except 
as  a  last  resource ;  and  the  need  did  not  arise.  No  one 
could  have  known  better  the  risks  of  such  an  attempt.  He 
knew  England  as  his  uncle  never  did;  and  if  he  had  not 
his  uncle's  energy  or  military  genius,  he  had  far  more 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  the  relative  resources  and 
capabilities  of  nations.  He  would  not  have  done  anything 
rash  without  great  necessity,  or  the  prospect  of  very  cer- 
tain benefit  in  the  event  of  success. 

An  invasion  of  England  was  not,  therefore,  a  likely 
event.  Looking  back  composedly  now  on  what  actually 
did  happen  we  may  safely  say  that  few  things  were  less 
likely.  But  it  was  not  by  any  means  an  impossible  event. 
The  more  composedly  one  looks  back  to  it  now,  the  more 
he  will  be  compelled  to  admit  that  it  was  at  least  on  the 
cards.  The  feeling  of  national  uneasiness  and  alarm  was 
not  a  mere  panic.  There  were  five  projects  with  which 
public  opinion  all  over  Europe  specially  credited  Louis 
Napoleon  when  he  began  his  imperial  reign.  One  was  a 
war  with  Russia.  Another  was  a  war  with  Austria.  A 
third  was  a  war  with  Prussia.  A  fourth  was  the  annexa- 
tion of  Belgium.  The  fifth  was  the  invasion  of  England. 
Three  of  these  projects  were  carried  out.  The  fourth  we 
know  was  in  contemplation.  Our  combination  with  France 
in  the  first  project  probably  put  all  serious  thought  of  the 
fifth  out  of  the  head  of  the  French  Emperor.  He  got  far 
more  prestige  out  of  an  alliance  with  us  than  he  could 
ever  have  got  out  of  any  quarrel  with  us;  and  he  had  little 
or  no  risk.  We  do  not  count  for  anything  the  repeated  as- 
surances of  Louis  Napoleon  that  he  desired  above  all  things 
to  be  on  friendly  terms  with  England.  These  assurances 
were  doubtless  sincere  at  the  moment  when  they  were 
made,  and  under  the  circumstances  of  that  moment.  But 
altered  circumstances  might  at  any  time  have  induced  an 
altered  frame  of  mind.     The  very  same  assurances  were 


472  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

made  again  and  again  to  Russia,  to  Austria,  and  to  Prussia. 
The  pledge  that  the  Empire  was  peace  was  addressed,  like 
the  Pope's  edict,  url^i  et  orbi. 

Therefore  we  do  not  look  upon  the  mood  of  England  in 
1852  as  one  of  idle  and  baseless  panic.  The  same  feeling 
broke  into  life  again  in  1859,  when  the  Emperor  of  the 
French  suddenly  announced  his  determination  to  go  to  war 
with  Austria.  It  was  in  this  latter  period,  indeed,  that 
the  Volunteer  movement  became  a  great  national  organi- 
zation, and  that  the  Laureate  did  his  best  to  rouse  it  into 
activity  in  the  verses  of  hardly  doubtful  merit  to  which 
we  have  already  referred.  But  in  1852  the  beginning  of 
an  army  of  volunteers  was  made,  and,  what  is  of  more 
importance  to  the  immediate  business  of  our  history,  the 
Government  determined  to  bring  in  a  bill  for  the  reorgani- 
zation of  the  national  militia. 

Our  militia  was  not  in  any  case  a  body  to  be  particularly 
proud  of  at  that  time.  It  had  fallen  into  decay,  and  al- 
most into  disorganization.  Nothing  could  have  been  a 
more  proper  work  for  any  Government  than  its  restoration 
to  efficiency  and  respectability.  Nothing,  too,  could  have 
been  more  timely  than  a  measure  to  make  it  efficient  in 
view  of  the  altered  condition  of  European  affairs  and  the 
increased  danger  of  disturbance  at  home  and  abroad.  We 
had  on  our  hands  at  the  time,  too,  one  of  our  little  wars — 
a  Caffre  war,  which  was  protracted  to  a  vexatious  length, 
and  which  was  not  without  serious  military  difficulty.  It 
began  in  the  December  of  1850,  and  was  not  completely 
disposed  of  before  the  early  part  of  1853.  We  could  not, 
therefore,  afford  to  have  our  defences  in  any  defective 
condition,  and  no  labor  was  more  fairly  incumbent  on  a 
Government  than  the  task  of  making  them  adequate  to 
their  purpose.  But  it  was  an  unfortunate  characteristic  of 
Lord  John  Russell's  Government  that  it  attempted  so  much 
legislation,  not  because  some  particular  scheme  com- 
mended itself  to  the  mature  wisdom  of  the  ministry,  but 
because  something  had  to  be  done  in  a  hurry  to  satisfy 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  ''The  Duke.'*     473 

public  opinion;  and  the  Government  could  not  think  of 
anything  better  at  the  moment  than  the  first  scheme  that 
came  to  hand.  Lord  John  Russell,  accordingly,  intro- 
duced a  Militia  Bill,  which  was  in  the  highest  degree  in- 
adequate and  unsatisfactory.  The  principal  peculiarity 
of  it  was  that  it  proposed  to  substitute  a  local  militia  for 
the  regular  force  that  had  been  in  existence.  Lord  Palm- 
erston  saw  great  objections  to  this  alteration,  and  urged 
them  with  much  briskness  and  skill  on  the  night  when 
Lord  John  Russell  explained  his  measure.  When  Palm- 
erston  began  his  speech,  he  probably  intended  to  be 
merely  critical  as  regarded  points  in  the  measure  which 
were  susceptible  of  amendment;  but  as  he  went  on  he 
found  more  and  more  that  he  had  the  House  with  him. 
Every  objection  he  made,  every  criticism  he  urged,  almost 
every  sentence  he  spoke,  drew  down  increasing  cheers. 
Lord  Palmerston  saw  that  the  House  was  not  only 
thoroughly  with  him  on  this  ground,  but  thoroughly 
against  the  Government  on  various  grounds.  A  few 
nights  after  he  followed  up  his  first  success  by  proposing  a 
resolution  to  substitute  the  word  "  regular"  for  the  word 
"  local"  in  the  bill ;  thus,  in  fact,  to  reconstruct  the  bill  on 
an  entirely  different  principle  from  that  adopted  by  its 
framer.  The  effort  was  successful.  The  Peelites  went 
with  Palmerston ;  the  Protectionists  followed  him  as  well ; 
and  the  result  was  that  T36  votes  were  given  for  the 
amendment,  and  only  125  against  it.  The  Government 
were  defeated  by  a  majority  of  eleven.  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell instantly  announced  that  he  could  no  longer  continue 
in  office,  as  he  did  not  possess  the  confidence  of  the 
country. 

The  announcement  took  the  House  by  surprise.  Lord 
Palmerston  had  not  himself  expected  any  such  result  from 
his  resolution.  There  was  no  reason  why  the  Government 
should  not  have  amended  their  bill  on  the  basis  of  the 
resolution  passed  by  the  House.  The  country  wanted  a 
scheme  of  efficient  defence,  and  the  Government  were  only 


474  -^  History  of  Otir  Own  Times. 

called  upon  to  make  their  scheme  efficient.  But  Lord 
John  Russell  was  well  aware  that  his  Administration  had 
been  losing  its  authority  little  by  little.  Since  the  time 
when  it  had  returned  to  power,  simply  because  no  one 
could  form  a  ministry  any  stronger  than  itself,  it  had  been 
only  a  Government  on  sufferance.  Ministers  who  assume 
office  in  that  stop-gap  way  seldom  retain  it  long  in  Eng- 
land. The  Gladstone  Government  illustrated  this  fact  in 
1873,  when  they  consented  to  return  to  office  because  Mr. 
Disraeli  was  not  then  in  a  condition  to  come  in,  and  were 
dismissed  by  an  overwhelming  majority  at  the  elections 
in  the  following  spring.  Lord  Palmerston  assigned  one 
special  reason  for  Lord  John  Russell's  promptness  in  re- 
signing on  the  change  in  the  Militia  Bill.  The  great 
motive  for  the  step  was,  according  to  Palmerston,  "  the 
fear  of  being  defeated  on  the  vote  of  censure  about  the 
Cape  affairs,  which  was  to  have  been  moved  to-day;  as  it 
is,  the  late  Government  have  gone  out  on  a  question  which 
they  have  treated  as  a  motion,  merely  asserting  that  they 
had  lost  the  confidence  of  the  House ;  whereas,  if  they  had 
gone  out  on  a  defeat  upon  the  motion  about  the  Cape,  they 
would  have  carried  with  them  the  direct  censure  of  the 
House  of  Commons."  The  letter  from  Lord  Palmerston 
to  his  brother,  from  which  these  words  are  quoted,  begins 
with  a  remarkable  sentence :  "  I  have  had  my  tit-for-tat 
with  John  Russell,  and  I  turned  him  out  on  Friday  last." 
Palmerston  did  not  expect  any  such  result,  he  declared; 
but  the  revenge  was  doubtless  sweet,  for  all  that.  This 
was  in  February,  1852;  and  it  was  only  in  the  December 
of  the  previous  year  that  Lord  Palmerston  was  compelled 
to  leave  the  Foreign  Office  by  Lord  John  Russell.  The 
same  influence,  oddly  enough,  was  the  indirect  cause  of 
both  events.  Lord  Palmerston  lost  his  place  because  of 
his  recognition  of  Louis  Napoleon;  Lord  John  Russell 
fell  from  power  while  endeavoring  to  introduce  a  measure 
suggested  by  Louis  Napoleon's  successful  usurpation.  It 
will  be  seen  in  a  future  chapter   how  the   influence   of 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  Duke."     47s 

Louis  Napoleon  was  once  again  fatal  to  each  statesman  in 
turn. 

The  Russell  Ministry  had  done  little  and  initiated  less. 
It  had  carried  on  Peel's  system  by  throwing  open  the 
markets  to  foreign  as  well  as  colonial  sugar,  and  by  the  re- 
peal of  the  Navigation  Laws  enabled  merchants  to  employ 
foreign  ships  and  seamen  in  the  conveyance  of  their  goods. 
It  had  made  a  mild  and  ineffectual  effort  at  a  Reform  Bill, 
and  had  feebly  favored  attempts  to  admit  Jews  to  Parlia- 
ment. It  sank  from  power  with  an  unexpected  collapse 
in  which  the  nation  felt  small  concern. 

Lord  Palmerston  did  not  come  to  power  again  at  that 
moment.  He  might  have  gone  in  with  Lord  Derby,  if  he 
had  been  so  inclined.  But  Lord  Derby,  who,  it  may  be 
said,  had  succeeded  to  that  title  on  the  death  of  his  father 
in  the  preceding  year,  still  talked  of  testing  the  policy  of 
Free-trade  at  a  general  election,  and  of  course  Palmerston 
was  not  disposed  to  have  anything  to  do  with  such  a 
proposition.  Nor  had  Palmerston  in  any  case  much  in- 
clination to  serve  under  Derb}^,  of  whose  political  intel- 
ligence he  thought  poorly,  and  whom  he  regarded  prin- 
cipally as  what  he  called  "  a  flashy  speaker."  Lord  Derby 
tried  various  combinations  in  vain,  and  at  last  had  to  ex- 
periment with  a  cabinet  of  undiluted  Protectionists.  He 
had  to  take  office,  not  because  he  wanted  it,  or  because 
any  one  in  particular  wanted  him,  but  simply  and  solely 
because  there  was  no  one  else  who  could  undertake  the 
task.  He  formed  a  cabinet  to  carry  on  the  business  of  the 
country  for  the  moment,  and  until  it  should  be  convenient 
to  have  a  general  election,  when  he  fondly  hoped  that  by 
some  inexplicable  process  a  Protectionist  reaction  would 
be  brought  about,  and  he  should  find  himself  at  the  head 
of  a  strong  administration. 

The  ministry  which  Lord  Derby  was  able  to  form  was 
not  a  strong  one.  Lord  Palmerston  described  it  as  con- 
taining two  men  of  mark,  Derby  and  Disraeli,  and  a 
number  of  ciphers.     It  had  not,  except  for  these  two,  a 


4']6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

single  man  of  any  political  ability,  and  had  hardly  one  of 
any  political  experience.  It  had  an  able  lawyer  for  Lord 
Chancellor,  Lord  St.  Leonards,  but  he  was  nothing  of  a 
politician.  The  rest  of  the  members  of  the  Government 
were  respectable  country  gentlemen.  One  of  them,  Mr. 
Herries,  had  been  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  a  short- 
lived Government,  that  of  Lord  Goderich,  in  1827;  and 
he  had  held  the  office  of  Secretary  of  War  for  a  few  months 
some  time  later.  He  was  forgotten  by  the  existing  gen- 
eration of  politicians,  and  the  general  public  only  knew 
that  he  was  still  living  when  they  hear  of  his  accession  to 
Lord  Derby's  Government.  The  Earl  of  Malmesbury, 
Sir  John  Pakington,  Mr.  Walpole,  Mr.  Henley,  and  the 
rest,  were  men  whose  antecedents  scarcely  gave  them 
warrant  for  any  higher  claim  in  public  life  than  the  posi- 
tion of  chairman  of  quarter-sessions;  nor  did  their  sub- 
sequent career  in  office  contribute  much  to  establish  a 
loftier  estimate  of  their  capacity.  The  head  of  the  Gov- 
ernment was  remarkable  for  his  dashing  blunders  as  a 
politician,  quite  as  much  as  for  his  dashing  eloquence. 
His  new  lieutenant,  Mr.  Disraeli,  had  in  former  days 
christened  him,  very  happily,  "The  Rupert  of  Debate," 
after  that  fiery  and  gallant  prince  whose  blunders  gener- 
ally lost  the  battles  which  his  headlong  courage  had  nearly 
won. 

Concerning  Mr.  Disraeli  himself  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  many  of  his  own  party  were  rather  more  afraid  of 
his  genius  than  of  the  dulness  of  any  of  his  colleagues. 
It  is  not  a  pleasant  task,  in  the  best  of  circumstances,  to 
be  at  the  head  of  a  tolerated  ministry  in  the  House  of 
Commons:  a  ministry  which  is  in  a  minority,  and  only 
holds  its  place  because  there  is  no  one  ready  to  relieve  it 
of  the  responsibility  of  office.  Mr.  Disraeli  himself,  at  a 
much  later  date,  gave  the  House  of  Commons  an  amusing 
picture  of  the  trials  and  humiliations  which  await  the 
leader  of  such  a  forlorn  hope.  He  had  now  to  assume  that 
position  without  any  previous  experience  of  office.    Rarely, 


Birth  of  the  Empire ;  Death  of  "The  Duke."     477 

indeed,  is  the  leadership  of  the  House  of  Commons  under- 
taken by  any  one  who  has  not  previously  held  office ;  and 
Mr.  Disraeli  entered  upon  leadership  and  office  at  the 
same  moment  for  the  first  time.  He  became  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  and  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Among  the  many  gifts  with  which  he  was  accredited  by 
fame,  not  a  single  admirer  had  hitherto  dreamed  of  in- 
cluding a  capacity  for  the  mastery  of  figures.  In  addition 
to  all  the  ordinary  difficulties  of  the  ministry  of  a  minority, 
there  was,  in  this  instance,  the  difficulty  arising  from  the 
obscurity  and  inexperience  of  nearly  all  its  members. 
Facetious  persons  dubbed  the  new  administration  the' 
"Who?  Who?  Ministry."  The  explanation  of  this  odd 
nickname  was  found  in  a  story  then  in  circulation  about 
the  Duke  of  Wellington.  The  Duke,  it  was  said,  was 
anxious  to  hear  from  Lord  Derby  at  the  earliest  moment 
all  about  the  composition  of  his  cabinet.  He  was  over- 
heard asking  the  new  Prime-minister  in  the  House  of 
Lords  the  names  of  his  intended  colleagues.  The  Duke 
was  rather  deaf,  and,  like  most  deaf  persons,  spoke  in  very 
loud  tones,  and  of  course  had  to  be  answered  in  tones  also 
rather  elevated.  That  which  was  meant  for  a  whispered 
conversation  became  audible  to  the  whole  House.  As 
Lord  Derby  mentioned  each  name,  the  Duke  asked  in 
wonder  and  eagerness,  "Who?  Who?"  After  each  new 
name  came  the  same  inquiry.  The  Duke  of  Wellington 
had  clearly  never  heard  of  most  of  the  new  ministers  be- 
fore. The  story  went  about:  and  Lord  Derby's  Adminis- 
tration was  familiarly  known  as  the  "Who?  Who?  Gov- 
ernment." 

Lord  Derby  entered  office  with  the  avowed  intention  of 
testing  the  Protection  question  all  over  again  ;  but  he  was 
no  sooner  in  office  than  he  found  that  the  bare  suggestion 
had  immensely  increased  his  difficulties.  The  formidable 
organization  which  had  worked  the  Free-trade  cause  so 
successfully  seemed  likely  to  come  into  political  life  again 
with  all  its  old  vigor.     The  Free-traders  began  to  stand 


478  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

together  again  the  moment  Lord  Derby  gave  his  unlucky 
hint.  Every  week  that  passed  over  his  head  did  some- 
thing to  show  him  the  mistake  he  had  made  when  he 
hampered  himself  with  any  such  undertaking  as  the  re- 
vival of  the  Protection  question.  Some  of  his  colleagues 
had  been  unhappily  and  blunderingly  outspoken  in  their 
addresses  to  their  constituents  seeking  for  re-election,  and 
had  talked  as  if  the  restoration  of  Protection  itself  were 
the  grand  object  of  Lord  Derby's  taking  office.  The  new 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  had  been  far  more  cautious. 
He  only  talked  vaguel)''  of  "  those  remedial  measures  which 
great  productive  interests,  suffering  from  unequal  taxation, 
have  a  right  to  expect  from  a  just  Government."  In 
truth,  Mr.  Disraeli  was  well  convinced  at  this  time  of  the 
hopelessness  of  any  agitation  for  the  restoration  of  Protec- 
tion, and  would  have  been  only  too  glad  of  any  oppor- 
tunity for  a  complete  and  at  the  same  time  a  safe  dis- 
avowal of  any  sympathy  with  such  a  project.  The  Gov- 
erment  found  their  path  bristling  with  troubles,  created 
for  them  by  their  own  mistake  in  giving  any  hint  about 
the  demand  for  a  new  trial  of  the  Free-trade  question. 
Any  chance  they  might  otherwise  have  had  of  making 
effective  head  against  their  very  trying  difficulties  was 
completely  cut  away  from  them. 

The  Free-trade  League  was  reorganized.  A  conference 
of  Liberal  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  held  at 
the  residence  of  Lord  John  Russell  in  Chesham  Place,  at 
which  it  was  resolved  to  extract  or  extort  from  the  GoV' 
ernment  a  full  avowal  of  their  policy  with  regard  to  Pro- 
tection and  Free-trade.  The  feat  would  have  been  rather 
difficult  of  accomplishment,  seeing  that  the  Government 
had  absolutely  no  policy  to  offer  on  the  subject,  and  were 
only  hoping  to  be  able  to  consult  the  country  as  one  might 
consult  an  oracle.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  when 
he  made  his  financial  statement,  accepted  the  increased 
prosperity  of  the  few  years  preceding  with  an  unction 
which  showed  that  he,  at  least,  had  no  particular  notion 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  Duke."     479 

of  attempting  to  reverse  the  policy  which  had  so  greatly- 
contributed  to  its  progress.  Mr.  Disraeli  pleased  the 
Peelites  and  the  Liberals  much  more  by  his  statement 
than  he  pleased  his  chief  or  many  of  his  followers.  His 
speech,  indeed,  was  very  clever.  A  new  financial  scheme 
he  could  not  produce,  for  he  had  not  had  time  to  make 
anything  like  a  complete  examination  of  the  finances  of 
the  country ;  but  he  played  very  prettily  and  skilfully  with 
the  facts  and  figures,  and  conveyed  to  the  listeners  the 
idea  of  a  man  who  could  do  wonderful  things  in  finance 
if  he  only  had  a  little  time  and  were  in  the  humor.  Every 
one  outside  the  limits  of  the  extreme  and  unconverted 
Protectionists  were  pleased  with  the  success  of  his  speech. 
People  were  glad  that  one  who  had  proved  himself  so  clever 
with  many  things  should  have  shown  himself  equal  to  the 
uncongenial  and  unwonted  task  of  dealing  with  dry  facts 
and  figures.  The  House  felt  that  he  was  placed  in  a  very 
trying  position,  and  was  well  pleased  to  see  him  hold  his 
own  so  successfully  in  it. 

Mr.  Disraeli  merely  proposed  in  his  financial  statement 
to  leave  things  as  he  found  them ;  to  continue  the  income- 
tax  for  another  year  as  a  provisional  arrangement  pending 
that  complete  re-examination  of  the  financial  affairs  of  the 
country  to  which  he  intimated  that  he  found  himself  quite 
equal  at  the  proper  time.  No  one  could  suggest  any  bet- 
ter course ;  and  the  new  Chancellor  came  off,  on  the  whole, 
with  flying  colors.  His  very  difficulties  had  been  a  source 
of  advantage  to  him.  He  was  not  expected  to  produce  a 
financial  scheme  at  such  short  notice;  and  if  he  was  not 
equal  to  a  financier's  task,  it  did  not  so  appear  on  this  first 
occasion  of  trial.  The  Government,  on  the  whole,  did  not 
do  so  badly  during  this  period  of  their  probation.  They 
introduced  and  caried  a  Militia  Bill,  for  which  they  ob- 
tained the  cordial  support  of  Lord  Palmerston;  and  they 
gave  a  Constitution  to  New  Zealand;  and  then,  in  the  be- 
ginning of  July,  the  Parliament  was  prorogued  and  the 
dissolution  took  place.     The  elections  were  signalized  by 


480  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

very  serious  riots  in  many  parts  of  the  country.  In  Ire- 
land, particularly,  party  passions  ran  high.  The  landlords 
and  the  police  were  on  one  side;  the  priests  and  the  popu- 
lar party  on  the  other;  and  in  several  places  there  was 
some  bloodshed.  It  was  not  in  Ireland,  however,  a  ques- 
tion about  Free-trade  or  Protection.  The  great  mass  of 
the  Irish  people  knew  nothing  about  Mr.  Disraeli — prob- 
ably had  never  heard  his  name,  and  did  not  care  who  led 
the  House  of  Commons.  The  question  which  agitated 
the  Irish  constituencies  was  that  of  Tenant-right,  in  the 
first  instance ;  and  the  time  had  not  yet  arrived  when  a 
great  minister  from  either  party  was  prepared  to  listen  to 
their  demands  on  this  subject.  There  was  also  much  bit- 
terness of  feeling  remaining  from  the  discussions  on  the 
Ecclesiastic  Titles  Bill.  But  it  may  be  safely  said  that 
not  one  of  the  questions  that  stirred  up  public  feeling  in 
England  had  the  slightest  popular  interest  in  Ireland,  and 
the  question  which  the  Irish  people  considered  essential 
to  their  very  existence  did  not  enter  for  one  moment  into 
the  struggles  that  were  going  on  all  over  England. 

The  speeches  of  ministers  in  England  showed  the  same 
lively  diversity  as  before  on  the  subject  of  Protection, 
Mr.  Disraeli  not  only  threw  Protection  overboard,  but 
boldly  declared  that  no  one  could  have  supposed  the  min- 
istry had  the  slightest  intention  of  proposing  to  bring  back 
the  laws  that  were  repealed  in  1846.  In  fact  the  time,  he 
declared,  had  gone  by  when  such  exploded  politics  could 
even  interest  the  people  of  this  country.  On  the  other 
hand,  several  of  Mr.  Disraeli's  colleagues  evidently  spoke 
in  the  fulness  of  their  simple  faith  that  Lord  Derby  was 
bent  on  setting  up  again  the  once  beloved  and  not  yet  for- 
gotten protective  system.  But  from  the  time  of  the  elec- 
tions nothing  more  was  heard  about  Protection,  or  about 
the  possibility  of  getting  a  new  trial  for  its  principles. 
The  elections  did  little  or  nothing  for  the  Government. 
The  dreams  of  a  strengthened  party  at  their  back  were 
gone.     They  gained  a  little,  just  enough  to  make  it  un- 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  Duke."     481 

likely  that  any  one  would  move  a  vote  of  want  of  confidence 
at  the  very  outset  of  their  reappearance  before  Parliament, 
but  not  nearly  enough  to  give  them  a  chance  of  carrying 
any  measure  which  could  really  propitiate  the  Conservative 
party  throughout  the  country.  They  were  still  to  be  the 
ministry  of  a  minority — a  ministry  on  sufferance.  They 
were  a  ministry  on  sufferance  when  they  appealed  to  the 
country,  but  they  were  able  to  say  then  that  when  their 
cause  had  been  heard  the  country  would  declare  for  them. 
They  now  came  back  to  be  a  ministry  on  sufferance,  who 
had  made  the  appeal  and  had  seen  it  rejected.  It  was 
plain  to  every  one  that  their  existence  as  a  ministry  was 
only  a  question  of  days.  Speculation  was  already  busy  as 
to  their  successors;  and  it  was  evident  that  a  new  Govern- 
ment could  only  be  formed  by  some  sort  of  coalition  be- 
tween the  Whigs  and  the  Peelites. 

Among  the  noteworthy  events  of  the  general  elections 
was  the  return  of  Macaulay  to  the  House  of  Commons. 
Edinburgh  elected  him  in  a  manner  particularly  compli- 
mentary to  him  and  honorable  to  herself.  He  was  elected 
without  his  solicitation,  without  his  putting  himself  for- 
ward as  a  candidate,  without  his  making  any  profession  of 
faith,  or  doing  any  of  the  things  that  the  most  independent 
candidate  was  then  expected  to  do;  and,  in  fact,  in  spite 
of  his  positive  declaration  that  he  would  do  nothing  to 
court  election.  He  had  for  some  years  been  absent  from 
Parliament.  Some  difference  had  arisen  between  him 
and  certain  of  his  constituents  on  the  subject  of  the  May- 
nooth  grant.  Complaints,  too,  had  been  made  by  Edin- 
burgh constituents  of  Macaulay 's  lack  of  attention  to  local 
interests,  and  of  the  intellectual  scorn  which,  as  they  be- 
lieved, he  exhibited  in  his  intercourse  with  many  of  those 
who  had  supported  him.  The  result  of  this  was  that  at 
the  general  election  of  1847  Macaulay  was  left  third  on  the 
poll  of  Edinburgh.  He  felt  this  deeply.  He  might  have 
easily  found  some  other  constituency;  but  his  wounded 
pride  hastened  a  resolution  he  had  for  some  time  been 
Vol.  I.— 31 


482  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

forming  to  retire  to  a  life  of  private  literary  labor.  He 
therefore  remained  out  of  Parliament.  In  1852  the  move- 
ment of  Edinburgh  toward  him  was  entirely  spontaneous, 
Edinburgh  was  anxious  to  atone  for  the  error  of  which 
she  had  been  guilty.  Macaulay  would  go  no  farther  than 
to  say  that  if  Edinburgh  spontaneously  elected  him  he 
should  deem  it  a  very  high  honor,  and  "  should  not  feel 
myself  justified  in  refusing  to  accept  a  public  trust  offered 
to  me  in  a  manner  so  honorable  and  so  peculiar."  But  he 
would  not  do  anything  whatever  to  court  favor.  He  did 
not  want  to  be  elected  to  Parliament,  he  said  ;  he  was  very 
happy  in  his  retirement.  Edinburgh  elected  him  on  those 
terms.  He  was  not  long  allowed  by  his  health  to  serve 
her;  but  so  long  as  he  remained  in  the  House  of  Commons 
it  was  as  member  for  Edinburgh. 

On  September  14th,  1852,  the  Duke  of  Wellington  died. 
His  end  was  singularly  peaceful.  He  fell  quietly  asleep 
about  a  quarter-past  three  in  the  afternoon  in  Walmer 
Castle,  and  he  did  not  wake  any  more.  He  was  a  very 
old  man — in  his  eighty-fourth  year — and  his  death  had 
naturally  been  looked  for  as  an  event  certain  to  come 
eoon.  Yet  when  it  did  come  thus  naturally  and  peace- 
fully, it  created  a  profound  public  emotion.  No  other  man 
in  our  time  ever  held  the  position  in  England  which  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  had  occupied  for  more  than  a  whole 
generation.  The  place  he  had  won  for  himself  was  abso- 
lutely unique.  His  great  deeds  belonged  to  a  past  time. 
He  was  hardly  anything  of  a  statesman;  he  knew  little 
and  cared  less  about  what  may  be  called  state-craft;  and 
as  an  administrator  he  had  made  many  mistakes.  But  the 
trust  which  the  nation  had  in  him  as  a  counsellor  was  ab- 
solutely unlimited.  It  never  entered  into  the  mind  of  any 
one  to  suppose  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  actuated 
in  any  step  he  took,  or  advice  he  gave,  by  any  feeling  but 
a  desire  for  the  good  of  the  State.  His  loyalty  to  the 
Sovereign  had  something  antique  and  touching  in  it. 
There  was  a  blending  of  personal  affection  with  the  devo- 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  ''The  Duke."     48^ 

tion  of  a  state  servant  which  lent  a  certain  romantic  dignity 
to  the  demeanor  and  character  of  one  who  otherwise  had 
but  little  of  the  poetical  or  the  sentimental  in  his  nature. 
In  the  business  of  politics  he  had  but  one  prevailing  anxi- 
ety, and  that  was  that  the  Queen's  Government  should  be 
satisfactorily  carried  on.  He  gave  up  again  and  again 
his  own  most  cherished  convictions,  most  ingrained  preju- 
dices, in  order  that  he  might  not  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
Queen's  Government  and  the  proper  carrying  of  it  on. 
This  simple  fidelity,  sometimes  rather  whimsically  dis- 
played, stood  him  often  in  stead  of  an  exalted  statesman- 
ship, and  enabled  him  to  extricate  the  Government  and 
the  nation  from  difficulties  in  which  a  political  insight  far 
more  keen  than  his  might  have  failed  to  prove  a  guide. 

It  was  for  this  true  and  tried,  this  simple  and  unswerv- 
ing devotion  to  the  national  good,  that  the  people  of  Eng- 
land admired  and  revered  him.  He  had  not  what  would 
be  called  a  lovable  temperament,  and  yet  the  nation  loved 
him.  He  was  cold  and  brusque  in  manner,  and  seemed 
in  general  to  have  hardly  a  gleam  of  the  emotional  in  him. 
This  was  not  because  he  lacked  affections.  On  the  con- 
trary, his  affections  and  his  friendship  were  warm  and  en- 
during; and  even  in  public  he  had  more  than  once  given 
way  to  outbursts  of  emotion  such  as  a  stranger  would  never 
have  expected  from  one  of  that  cold  and  rigid  demeanor. 
When  Sir  Robert  Peel  died,  Wellington  spoke  of  him  in 
the  House  of  Lords  wnth  the  tears,  which  he  did  not  even 
try  to  control,  running  down  his  cheeks.  But  in  his  or- 
dinary bearing  there  was  little  of  the  manner  that  makes 
a  man  a  popular  idol.  He  was  not  brilliant  or  dashing, 
or  emotional  or  graceful;  he  was  dry,  cold,  self-contained. 
Yet  the  people  loved  him  and  trusted  in  him ;  loved  him 
perhaps  especially  because  they  so  trusted  in  him.  No 
face  and  figure  were  better  known  at  one  time  to  the  popu- 
lation of  London  than  those  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
Of  late  his  form  had  grown  stooped,  and  he  bent  over  his 
horse  as  he  rode  in  the  Park  or  down  Whitehall  like  one 


484  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

who  could  hardly  keep  himself  in  the  saddle.  Yet  he 
mounted  his  horse  to  the  last,  and  indeed  could  keep  in 
the  saddle  after  he  had  ceased  to  be  able  to  sit  erect  in  an 
arm-chair.  He  sometimes  rode  in  a  curious  little  cab  of 
his  own  devising;  but  his  favorite  way  of  going  about 
London  was  on  the  back  of  his  horse.  He  was  called,  J>ar 
excellence,  "the  Duke."  The  London  workingman  who 
looked  up  as  he  went  to  or  from  his  work  and  caught  a 
sight  of  the  bowed  figure  on  the  horse,  took  off  his  hat  and 
told  some  passer-by,  "There  goes  the  Duke!"  His  vic- 
tories belonged  to  the  past.  They  were  but  traditions  even 
to  middle-aged  men  in  "the  Duke's"  later  years.  But  he 
was  regarded  still  as  an  embodiment  of  the  national  hero- 
ism and  success — a  modern  St.  George  in  a  tightly-but- 
toned frock-coat  and  white  trousers. 

Wellington  belonged  so  much  to  the  past  at  the  time  of 
his  death  that  it  seems  hardly  in  place  here  to  say  any- 
thing about  his  character  as  a  soldier.  But  it  may  be  re- 
marked that  his  success  was  due  in  great  measure  to  a  sort 
of  inspired  common-sense  which  rose  to  something  like 
genius.  He  had  in  the  highest  conceivable  degree  the  art 
of  winning  victories.  In  war,  as  in  statesmanship,  he  had 
one  characteristic  which  is  said  to  have  been  the  special 
gift  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  for  the  lack  of  which  Caesar's 
greatest  modern  rival  in  the  art  of  conquest,  the  first  Na- 
poleon, lost  all,  or  nearly  all  that  he  had  won.  Welling- 
ton not  only  understood  what  could  be  done,  but  also  what 
could  not  be  done.  The  wild  schemes  of  almost  universal 
rule  which  set  Napoleon  astray  and  led  him  to  his  destruc- 
tion would  have  appeared  to  the  strong  common-sense  of 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  as  impossible  and  absurd  as  they 
would  have  looked  to  the  lofty  intelligence  of  Caesar.  It 
can  hardly  be  questioned  that  in  original  genius  Napoleon 
far  surpassed  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  But  Wellington 
always  knew  exactly  what  he  could  do,  and  Napoleon  often 
confounded  his  ambitions  with  his  capacities.  Welling- 
ton provided  for  everything,  looked  after  everything ;  never 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  Duke."     485 

trusted  to  his  star  or  to  chance,  or  to  anything  but  care 
and  preparation,  and  the  proper  application  of  means  to 
ends.  Under  almost  any  conceivable  conditions,  Welling- 
ton, pitted  against  Napoleon,  was  the  man  to  win  in  the 
end.  The  very  genius  of  Napoleon  would  sooner  or  later 
have  left  him  open  to  the  unsleeping  watchfulness,  the 
almost  infallible  judgment,  of  Wellington.  •- 

He  was  as  fortunate  as  he  was  deserving.  No  man 
could  have  drunk  more  deeply  of  the  cup  of  fame  and  for- 
tune than  Wellington  ;  and  he  was  never  for  one  moment 
intoxicated  by  it.  After  all  his  long  wars  and  his  splendid 
victories  he  had  some  thirty-seven  years  of  peace  and 
glory  to  enjoy.  He  held  the  loftiest  position  in  this  coun- 
try that  any  man  not  a  sovereign  could  hold,  and  he  ranked 
far  higher  in  the  estimation  of  his  countrymen  than  most 
of  their  sovereigns  have  done.  The  rescued  emperors 
and  kings  of  Europe  had  showered  their  honors  on  him. 
His  fame  was  as  completely  secured  during  his  lifetime 
as  if  death,  by  removing  him  from  the  possibility  of  mak- 
ing a  mistake,  had  consecrated  it.  No  new  war  under 
altered  conditions  tried  the  flexibility  and  the  endurance 
of  the  military  genius  which  had  defeated  in  turn  all 
Napoleon's  great  marshals  as  a  prelude  to  the  defeat  of 
Napoleon  himself.  If  ever  any  mortal  may  be  said  to 
have  had  in  life  all  he  could  have  desired,  Wellington 
was  surely  that  man.  He  might  have  found  a  new  con- 
tentment in  his  honors,  if  he  really  cared  much  about 
them,  in  the  reflection  that  he  had  done  nothing  for  him- 
self, but  all  for  the  State.  He  did  not  love  war.  He  had 
no  inclination  whatever  for  it.  When  Lord  John  Russell 
visited  Napoleon  in  Elba,  Napoleon  asked  him  whether 
he  thought  the  Duke  of  Wellington  would  be  able  to  live 
thenceforward  without  the  excitement  of  war.  It  was 
probably  in  Napoleon's  mind  that  the  English  soldier 
would  be  constantly  entangling  his  country  in  foreign 
complications  for  the  sake  of  gratifying  his  love  for  the 
brave  squares  of  war.     Lord  John  Russell  endeavored  to 


486  •      A  History  of  Our  Oivn  Times. 

impress  upon  the  great  fallen  Emperor  that  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  lapse  into  the 
place  of  a  simple  citizen,  and  would  look  with  no  manner 
of  regret  to  the  stormy  days  of  battle.  Napoleon  seems 
to  have  listened  with  a  sort  of  melancholy  incredulity,  and 
only  observed  once  or  twice  that  "  it  was  a  splendid  game, 
war."  To  Wellington  it  was  no  splendid  game,  or  game 
of  any  sort.  It  was  a  stern  duty  to  be  done  for  his  Sover- 
eign and  his  country,  and  to  be  got  through  as  quickly  as 
possible.  The  difference  between  the  two  men  cannot 
be  better  illustrated.  It  is  impossible  to  compare  two  such 
men.  There  is  hardly  any  common  basis  of  comparison. 
To  say  which  is  the  greater,  one  must  first  make  up  his 
mind  as  to  whether  his  standard  of  greatness  is  genius  or 
duty.  Napoleon  has  made  a  far  deeper  impression  on 
history.  If  that  be  superior  greatness,  it  would  be  scarcely 
possible  for  any  national  partiality  to  claim  an  equal  place 
for  Wellington.  But  Englishmen  may  be  content  with 
the  reflection  that  their  hero  saved  his  country,  and  that 
Napoleon  nearly  ruined  his.  We  write  this  without  the 
slightest  inclination  to  sanction  what  may  be  called  the 
British  Philistine  view  of  the  character  of  Napoleon.  Up 
to  a  certain  period  of  his  career  it  seems  to  us  deserving 
of  almost  unmingled  admiration;  just  as  his  countrj'',  in 
her  earlier  disputes  with  the  other  European  Powers, 
seems  to  have  been  almost  entirely  in  the  right.  But  his 
success  and  his  glory  were  too  strong  for  Napoleon.  He 
fell  for  the  very  want  of  that  simple,  steadfast  devotion 
to  duty  which  inspired  Wellington  always,  and  which 
made  him  seem  dignified  and  great,  even  in  statesmanship 
for  which  he  was  unfitted,  and  even  when  in  statesmanship 
he  was  acting  in  a  manner  that  would  have  made  another 
man  seem  ridiculous  rather  than  respectable.  Wellington 
more  nearly  resembled  Washington  than  Napoleon.  He 
was  a  much  greater  soldier  than  Washington ;  but  he  was 
not,  on  the  whole,  so  great  a  man. 

It  is  fairly  to  be  said  for  Wellington  that  the  proper- 


Birth  of  the  Empire  ;  Death  of  ' '  The  Duke, "      487 

tions  of  his  personal  greatness  seem  to  grow  rather  than 
to  dwindle  as  he  and  his  events  are  removed  from  us  by 
time.  The  battle  of  Waterloo  does  not  indeed  stand,  as 
one  of  its  historians  has  described  it,  among  the  decisive 
battles  of  the  world.  It  was  fought  to  keep  the  Bonapartes 
off  the  throne  of  France ;  and  in  twenty-five  years  after 
Waterloo,  while  the  victor  of  Waterloo  was  yet  living, 
another  Bonaparte  was  preparing  to  mount  that  throne. 
It  was  the  climax  of  a  national  policy  which,  however 
justifiable  and  inevitable  it  may  have  become  in  the  end, 
would  hardly  now  be  justified  as  to  its  origin  by  one  in- 
telligent Englishman  out  of  twenty.  The  present  age  is 
not,  therefore,  likely  to  become  rhapsodical  over  Welling- 
ton, as  our  forefathers  might  have  been,  merely  because 
he  defeated  the  French  and  crushed  Napoleon.  Yet  it  is 
impossible  for  tjie  coolest  mind  to  study  the  career  of 
Wellington  without  feeling  a  constant  glow  of  admiration 
for  that  singular  course  of  simple  antique  devotion  to  duty. 
His  was  truly  the  spirit  in  which  a  great  nation  must  desire 
to  be  served. 

The  nation  was  not  ungrateful.  It  heaped  honors  on 
Wellington;  it  would  have  heaped  more  on  him  if  it  knew 
how.  It  gave  him  its  almost  unqualified  admiration.  On 
his  death  it  tried  to  give  him  such  a  public  funeral  as 
hero  never  had.  The  pageant  was,  indeed,  a  splendid 
and  a  gorgeous  exhibition.  It  was  not,  perhaps,  very 
well  suited  to  the  temperament  and  habits  of  the  cold  and 
simple  hero  to  whose  honor  it  was  got  up.  Nor,  perhaps, 
are  gorgeous  pageants  exactly  the  sort  of  performance  in 
which,  as  a  nation,  England  particularly  excels.  But  in 
the  vast,  silent,  respectful  crowd  that  thronged  the  Lon- 
don streets — a  crowd  such  as  no  other  city  in  the  world 
could  show — there  was  better  evidence  than  pageantry  or 
ceremonial  could  supply  of  the  esteem  in  which  the  living 
generation  held  the  hero  of  the  last.  The  name  of  Wel- 
lington had  long  ceased  to  represent  any  hostility  of  nation 
to  nation.     The  crowds  who  filled  the  streets  of  London 


488  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

that  day  had  no  thought  of  the  kind  of  sentiment  which 
used  to  fill  the  breasts  of  their  fathers  when  France  and 
Napoleon  were  named.  They  honored  Wellington  only 
as  one  who  had  always  served  his  country;  as  the  soldier 
of  England  and  not  as  the  invader  of  France,  or  even  as 
the  conqueror  of  Napoleon.  The  homage  to  his  memory 
was  as  pure  of  selfish  passion  as  his  own  career. 

The  new  Parliament  was  called  together  in  November. 
It  brought  into  public  life  in  England  a  man  who  after- 
ward made  some  mark  in  our  politics,  and  whose  intellect 
and  debating  power  seemed  at  one  time  to  promise  him  a 
position  inferior  to  that  of  hardly  any  one  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  This  was  Mr.  Robert  Lowe,  who  had  returned 
from  one  of  the  Australian  colonies  to  enter  political  life 
in  his  native  country.  Mr.  Lowe  was  a  scholar  of  highly 
cultured  order;  and,  despite  some  serious  defects  of  deliv- 
ery, he  proved  to  be  a  debater  of  the  very  highest  class, 
especially  gifted  with  the  weapons  of  sarcasm,  scorn,  and 
invective.  He  was  a  Liberal  in  the  intellectual  sense; 
he  was  opposed  to  all  restraints  on  education  and  on  the 
progress  of  a  career ;  but  he  had  a  detestation  for  demo- 
cratic doctrines  which  almost  amounted  to  a  mania.  He 
despised  with  the  whole  force  of  a  temperament  very 
favorable  to  intellectual  scorn  alike  the  rural  Tory  and 
the  town  Radical.  His  opinions  were  generally  rather 
negative  than  positive.  He  did  not  seem  to  have  any  very 
positive  opinions  of  any  kind  where  politics  were  con- 
cerned. He  was  governed  by  a  detestation  of  abstractions 
and  sentimentalities,  and  "views"  of  all  sorts.  An  in- 
tellectual Don  Juan  of  the  political  world,  he  believed 
with  Moliere's  hero  that  two  and  two  make  four,  and  that 
four  and  four  make  eight,  and  he  was  impatient  of  any 
theory  which  would  commend  itself  to  the  mind  on  less 
rigorous  evidence.  If  contempt  for  the  intellectual  weak- 
nesses of  an  opposing  party  or  doctrine  could  have  made  a 
great  politician,  Mr.  Lowe  would  have  won  that  name. 
In  politics,  however,  criticism  is  not  enough.     One  must 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  Duke."      489 

be  able  to  originate,  to  mould  the  will  of  others,  to  com- 
promise, to  lead  while  seeming  to  follow,  often  to  follow 
while  seeming  to  lead.  Of  gifts  like  these  Mr.  Lowe  had 
no  share.  He  never  became  more  than  a  great  Parlia- 
mentary critic  of  the  acrid  and  vitriolic  style. 

Almost  immediately  on  the   assembling    of    the    new 
Parliament,   Mr.   Villiers  brought  forward    a    resolution 
not  merely  pledging  the  House  of  Commons  to  a    Free- 
trade  policy,  but  pouring  out  a   sort  of  censure  on  all  who 
had  hitherto  failed  to  recognize  its  worth.      This  step  was 
thought  necessary,   and  was  indeed  made  necessary,    by 
the   errors  of  which  Lord  Derby  had  been  guilty,  and  the 
preposterous  vaporings  of  some  of  his  less   responsible 
followers.     If  the  resolution  had  been  passed,  the  Govern- 
ment must  have   resigned.     They  were  willing  enough 
now  to  agree  to  any  resolution  declaring  that  Free-trade 
was  the  established  policy  of  the  country;  but  they  could 
not  accept  the  triumphant  eulogium  which  the  resolution 
proposed  to  offer  to  the  commercial  policy  of  the  years 
when  they  were  the  uncompromising  enemies  of  that  very 
policy.     They  could  submit  to  the  punishment  imposed 
on  them ;     but  they  did  not  like  this  public  kissing  of  the 
rod  and  doing  penance.      Lord  Palmerston,  who,  even  up  to 
that  time,  regarded  his  ultimate  acceptance  of  office  under 
Lord  Derby  as  a  not  impossible  event  if  once  the  Derby 
party  could  shake  themselves  quite  free    of    Protection, 
devised  an  amendment  which  afforded  them  the  means  of 
a  more  or  less  honorable  retreat.     This  resolution  pledged 
the  House  to  the  "  policy  of  unrestricted  competition  firmly 
maintained    and   prudently  extended;"    but  recorded  no 
panegyric  of  the  legislation  of  1846,  and  consequent  con- 
demnation of  those  who  opposed  that  legislation.     The 
amendment  was  accepted  by   all  but  the  small  band  of 
irreconcilable   Protectionists;    468  voted  for  it;    only   53 
against  it;  and  the  moan  of  Protection  was  made.     All 
that  long  chapter  of  English  legislation  was  closed.     Vari- 
ous commercial  and  other  "  interests"  did  indeed  afterward 


490  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

demur  to  the  application  of  the  principle  of  unrestricted 
competition  to  their  peculiar  concerns.  But  they  did  not 
plead  for  Protection.  They  only  contended  that  the  Pro- 
tection they  sought  for  was  not,  in  fact,  Protection  at 
all,  but  Free-trade  under  peculiar  circumstances.  The 
straightforward  doctrine  of  Protection  perished  of  the 
debate  of  November,  1852. 

Still,  the  Government  only  existed  on  sufferance.  Their 
tenure  of  office  was  somewhat  rudely  compared  to  that 
of  a  bailiff  put  into  possession  of  certain  premises,  who 
is  liable  to  be  sent  away  at  any  moment  when  the  two 
parties  concerned  in  the  litigation  choose  to  come  to  terms. 
There  was  a  general  expectation  that  the  moment  Mr. 
Disraeli  came  to  set  out  a  genuine  financial  scheme  the 
fate  of  the  Government  would  be  decided.  So  the  event 
proved.  Mr.  Disraeli  made  a  financial  statement  which 
showed  remarkable  capacity  for  dealing  with  figures.  It 
was  subjected  to  a  far  more  serious  test  than  his  first 
budget,  for  that  was  necessarily  a  mere  stop-gap  or  make- 
shift. This  was  a  real  budget,  altering  and  reconstructing 
the  financial  system  and  the  taxation  of  the  country.  The 
skill  with  which  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  ex- 
plained his  measures  and  tossed  his  figures  about  convinced 
many  even  of  his  strongest  opponents  that  he  had  the 
capacity  to  make  a  good  budget  if  he  only  were  allowed 
to  do  so  by  the  conditions  of  his  party's  existence.  But  his 
cabinet  had  come  into  office  under  special  obligations  to 
the  country  party  and  the  farmers.  They  could  not  avoid 
making  some  experiment  in  the  way  of  special  legislation 
for  the  farmers;  they  had,  at  the  very  least,  to  put  on  an 
appearance  of  doing  something  for  them.  The  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  might  be  supposed  to  be  in  the  position 
of  the  soldier  in  Hogarth's  "  March  to  Finchley,"  between 
the  rival  claimants  on  his  attention.  He  has  promised 
and  vowed  to  the  one;  but  he  knows  that  the  slightest 
mark  of  civility  he  offers  to  her  will  be  fiercely  resented 
by  the  other.     When  Mr.  Disraeli  undertook  to  favor  the 


Birth  of  the  Empire;  Death  of  "The  Duke,"     491 

country  interest  and  the  farmers,  he  must  have  known  only 
too  well  that  he  was  setting  all  the  Free-traders  and 
Peelites  against  him ;  and  he  knew  at  the  same  time  that 
if  he  neglected  the  country  party  he  was  cutting  the 
ground  from  beneath  his  feet.  The  principle  of  his  bud- 
get was  the  reduction  of  the  malt  duties  and  the  increase 
of  the  inhabited  house  duty.  Some  manipulations  of  the 
income-tax  were  to  be  introduced,  chiefly  with  a  view  to 
lighten  the  impost  on  farmers'  profits;  and  there  was  to 
be  a  modest  reduction  of  the  tea  duty.  The  two  points 
that  stood  out  clear  and  prominent  before  the  House  of 
Commons  were  the  reduction  of  the  malt  duty  and  the  in- 
crease of  the  duty  on  inhabited  houses.  The  reduction  of 
the  malt-tax,  as  Mr.  Lowe  said  in  his  pungent  criticism, 
was  the  key-stone  of  the  budget.  That  reduction  created 
a  deficit,  which  the  inhabited  house  duty  had  to  be  doubled 
in  order  to  supply.  The  scheme  was  a  complete  failure. 
The  farmers  did  not  care  much  about  the  concession  which 
had  been  made  in  their  favor ;  those  who  had  to  pay  for 
it  in  doubled  taxation  were  bitterly  indignant.  Mr. 
Disraeli  had  exasperated  the  one  claimant,  and  not  greatly 
pleased  the  other.  The  Government  soon  saw  how  things 
were  likely  to  go.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
began  to  see  that  he  had  only  a  desperate  fight  to  make. 
The  Whigs,  the  Free-traders,  the  Peelites,  and  such  in- 
dependent members  or  unattached  members  as  Mr.  Lowe 
and  Mr.  Bernal  Osborne,  all  fell  on  him.  It  became  a 
combat  a  outrance.  It  well  suited  Mr.  Disraeli's  peculiar 
temperament.  During  the  whole  of  his  Parliamentary 
career  he  has  never  fought  so  well  as  when  he  has  been 
free  to  indulge  to  the  full  the  courage  of  despair. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


MR.    GLADSTONE. 


The  debate  was  one  of  the  finest  of  its  kind  ever  heard 
in  Parliament  during  our  time.  The  excitement  on  both 
sides  was  intense.  The  rivalry  was  hot  and  eager.  Mr. 
Disraeli  was  animated  by  all  the  power  of  desperation, 
and  was  evidently  in  a  mood  neither  to  give  nor  to  take 
quarter.  He  assailed  Sir  Charles  Wood,  the  late  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer,  with  a  vehemence  and  even  a 
virulence  which  certainly  added  much  to  the  piquancy 
and  interest  of  the  discussion  so  far  as  listeners  were  con- 
cerned, but  which  more  than  once  went  to  the  very  verge 
of  the  limits  of  Parliamentary  decorum.  It  was  in  the 
course  of  this  speech  that  Disraeli,  leaning  across  the 
table  and  directing  his  words  full  at  Sir  Charles  Wood, 
declared,  "  I  care  not  to  be  the  right  honorable  gentleman's 
critic,  but  if  he  has  learned  his  business,  he  has  yet  to 
learn  that  petulance  is  not  sarcasm,  and  that  insolence  is 
not  invective."  The  House  had  not  heard  the  concluding 
word  of  Disraeli's  bitter  and  impassioned  -speech  when  at 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning  Mr.  Gladstone  leaped  to  his 
feet  to  answer  him.  Then  began  that  long  Parliamentary 
duel  which  only  knew  a  truce  when  at  the  close  of  the 
session  of  1876  Mr.  Disraeli  crossed  the  threshold  of  the 
House  of  Commons  for  the  last  time,  thenceforward  to 
take  his  place  among  the  peers  as  Lord  Beaconsfield. 
During  all  the  intervening  four-and-twenty  years  these  two 
men  were  rivals  in  power  and  in  Parliamentary  debate  as 
much  as  ever  Pitt  and  Fox  had  been.  Their  opposition, 
like  that  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  was  one  of  temperament  and 
character  as  well  as  of  genius,  position  and  political  opin- 


Mr.  Gladstone.  49j 

ion.  The  rivalry  of  this  first  heated  and  eventful  night 
was  a  splendid  display.  Those  who  had  thought  it  impos- 
sible that  any  impression  could  be  made  upon  the  House 
after  the  speech  of  Mr.  Disraeli  had  to  acknowledge  that 
a  yet  greater  impression  was  produced  by  the  unprepared 
reply  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  The  House  divided  about  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  the  Government  were  left  in 
a  minority  of  nineteen.  Mr.  Disraeli  took  the  defeat  with 
his  characteristic  composure.  The  morning  was  cold  and 
wet.  "  It  will  be  an  unpleasant  day  for  going  to  Osborne, " 
he  quietly  remarked  to  a  friend  as  they  went  down  West- 
minster Hall  together  and  looked  out  into  the  dreary 
streets.  That  day,  at  Osborne,  the  resignation  of  the 
ministry  was  formally  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Queen. 

In  a  few  day  after,  the  Coalition  Ministry  was  formed. 
Lord  Aberdeen  was  Prime-minister;  Lord  John  Russell 
took  the  Foreign  Office;  Lord  Palmerston  became  Home 
Secretary;  Mr.  Gladstone  was  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. The  public  were  a  good  deal  surprised  that 
Lord  Palmerston  had  taken  such  a  place  as  that  of  Home 
Secretary.  His  name  had  been  identified  with  the  foreign 
policy  of  England,  and  it  was  not  supposed  that  he  felt 
the  slightest  interest  in  the  ordinary  business  of  the  Home 
Department.  Palmerston  himself  explained  in  a  letter  to 
his  brother  that  the  Home  Office  was  his  own  choice. 
He  was  not  anxious  to  join  the  ministry  at  all ;  and  if  he 
had  to  make  one,  he  preferred  that  he  should  hold  some 
office  in  which  he  had  personally  no  traditions.  "  I  had 
long  settled  in  my  own  mind,"  he  said,  "that  I  would  not 
go  back  to  the  Foreign  Office,  and  that  if  I  ever  took  any 
office  it  should  be  the  Home.  It  does  not  do  for  a  man 
to  pass  his  whole  life  in  one  department,  and  the  Home 
Office  deals  with  the  concerns  of  the  country  internally, 
and  brings  one  in  contact  with  one's  fellow-countrymen ; 
besides  which  it  gives  one  more  influence  in  regard  to  the 
militia  and  the  defences  of  the  country."  Lord  Palmer- 
ston, in  fact,  announces  that  he  has  undertaken  the  business 


494  ^  History  of  Our  Ow7i  Times. 

of  the  Home  Office  for  the  same  reason  as  that  given  by 
Fritz,  in  the  "Grande  Duchesse,"  for  becoming  a  school- 
master, "Can  you  teach?"  asks  the  Grande  Duchesse. 
"No,"  is  the  answer;  "  c' es^  pour  apprendre ;  I  go  to 
learn."  The  reader  may  well  suspect,  however,  that  it 
was  not  only  with  a  view  of  learning  the  business  of  the 
internal  administration  and  becoming  acquainted  with  his 
fellow-countrymen  that  Palmerston  preferred  the  Home 
Office.  He  would  not  consent  to  be  Foreign  Secretary  on 
any  terms  but  his  own,  and  these  terms  were  then  out  of 
the  question. 

The  principal  interest  felt  in  the  new  Government  was 
not,  however,  centred  in  Lord  Palmerston.  The  new 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was  the  man  upon  whom 
the  eyes  of  curiosity  and  interest  were  chiefly  turned. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  still  a  young  man,  in  the  Parliament- 
ary sense  at  least.  He  was  but  forty-three.  His  career 
had  been  in  every  way  remarkable.  He  had  entered 
public  life  at  a  very  early  age.  He  had  been,  to  quote  the 
words  of  Macaulay,  a  distinguished  debater  in  the  House 
of  Commons  ever  since  he  was  one-and-twenty.  Criticis- 
ing his  book,  "  The  State  in  its  Relations  with  the  Church," 
which  was  published  in  1838,  Macaulay  speaks  of  Glad- 
stone as  "  a  young  man  of  unblemished  character  and  of 
distinguished  Parliamentary  talents,  the  rising  hope  of 
those  stern  and  unbending  Tories  who  follow  reluctantly 
and  mutinously  a  leader  whose  experience  is  indispensable 
to  them,  but  whose  cautious  temper  and  moderate  opinions 
they  abhor."  The  time  was  not  so  far  away  when  the 
stern  and  unbending  Tories  would  regard  Gladstone  as  the 
greatest  hope  of  their  most  bitter  enemies.  Lord  Macaulay 
goes  on  to  overwhelm  the  views  expressed  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone as  to  the  relations  between  State  and  Church  with 
a  weight  of  argument  and  gorgeousness  of  illustration  that 
now  seem  to  have  been  hardly  called  for.  One  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  young  statesman  which  Macaulay  confutes 
with  special  warmth  is  the  principle  which,  as  he  states 


Mr.  Gladstone.  495 

it,  "would  give  the  Irish  a  Protestant  Church  whether 
they  like  it  or  not."  The  author  of  the  book  which  con- 
tained this  doctrine  was  the  author  of  the  disestablish- 
ment of  the  State  Church  in  Ireland. 

Mr.  Gladstone  was  by  birth  a  Lancashire  man.  It  is 
not  unworthy  of  notice  that  Lancashire  gave  to  the  Parlia- 
ments of  recent  times  their  three  greatest  orators — Mr. 
Gladstone,  Mr.  Bright,  and  the  late  Lord  Derby.  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  born  in  Liverpool,  and  was  the  son  of  Sir 
John  Gladstone,  a  Scotchman,  who  founded  a  great  house 
in  the  seaport  of  the  Mersey.  He  entered  Parliament 
when  very  young  as  2i prot^gd  oi  the  Newcastle  family,  and 
he  soon  faithfully  attached  himself  to  Sir  Robert  Peel. 
His  knowledge  of  finance,  his  thorough  appreciation  of 
the  various  needs  of  a  nation's  commerce  and  business,  his 
middle-class  origin,  all  brought  him  into  natural  affinity 
with  his  great  leader.  He  became  a  Free-trader  with  Peel. 
He  was  not  in  the  House  of  Commons,  oddly  enough, 
during  the  session  when  the  Free-trade  battle  was  fought 
and  won.  It  has  already  been  explained  in  this  history 
that,  as  he  had  changed  his  opinions  with  his  leader,  he  felt 
a  reluctance  to  ask  the  support  of  the  Newcastle  family 
for  the  borough  which  by  virtue  of  their  influence  he  had 
previously  represented.  But,  except  for  that  short  inter- 
val, his  whole  career  may  be  pronounced  one  long  Parlia- 
mentary success.  He  was  from  the  very  first  recognized 
as  a  brilliant  debater,  and  as  one  who  promised  to  be  an 
orator ;  but  it  was  not  until  after  the  death  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  that  he  proved  himself  the  master  of  Parliamentary 
eloquence  we  all  now  know  him  to  be.  It  was  he  who 
pronounced  what  may  be  called  the  funeral  oration  upon 
Peel  in  the  House  of  Commons;  but  the  speech,  although 
undoubtedly  inspired  by  the  truest  and  the  deepest  feel- 
ings, does  not  seem  by  any  means  equal  to  some  of  his 
more  recent  efforts.  There  is  an  appearance  of  elaboration 
about  it  which  goes  far  to  mar  its  effect.  Perhaps  the 
first  really  great  speech  made  by  Gladstone  was  the  reply 


496  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

to  Disraeli  on  the  memorable  December  morning  which 
we  have  just  described.  That  speech  put  him  in  the  very- 
foremost  rank  of  English  orators.  Then,  perhaps,  he  first 
showed  to  the  full  the  one  great  quality  in  which  as  a 
Parliamentary  orator  he  has  never  had  a  rival  in  our  time 
— the  readiness  which  seems  to  require  no  preparation, 
but  can  marshal  all  its  arguments  as  if  by  instinct  at  a 
given  moment,  and  the  fluency  which  can  pour  out  the 
most  eloquent  language  as  freely  as  though  it  were  but  the 
breath  of  the  nostrils.  When,  shortly  after  the  formation 
of  the  Coalition  Ministry,  Mr.  Gladstone  delivered  his  first 
budget,  it  was  regarded  as  a  positive  curiosity  of  financial 
exposition.  It  was  a  performance  that  belonged  to  the 
department  of  the  fine  arts.  The  speech  occupied  several 
hours,  and  assuredly  no  listener  wished  it  the  shorter  by  a 
single  sentence.  Pitt,  we  read,  had  the  same  art  of  mak- 
ing a  budget  speech  a  fascinating  discourse ;  but  in  our 
time  no  minister  has  had  this  gift  except  Mr.  Gladstoi..  , 
Each  time  that  he  essayed  the  same  task  subsequently 
he  accomplished  just  the  same  success.  Mr.  Gladstone's 
first  oratorical  qualification  was  his  exquisite  voice.  Such 
a  voice  would  make  commonplace  seem  interesting,  and 
lend  something  of  fascination  to  dulness  itself.  It  was 
singularly  pure,  clear,  resonant,  and  sweet.  The  orator 
never  seemed  to  use  the  slightest  effort  or  strain  in  filling 
any  hall  and  reaching  the  ear  of  the  farthest  among  the 
audience.  It  was  not  a  loud  voice  or  of  great  volume, 
but  strong,  vibrating,  and  silvery.  The  words  were 
always  aided  by  energetic  action  and  by  the  deep-gleam- 
ing eyes  of  the  orator.  Somebody  once  said  that  Gladstone 
was  the  only  man  in  the  House  who  could  talk  in  italics. 
The  saying  was  odd,  but  was  nevertheless  appropriate  and 
expressive.  Gladstone  could,  by  the  slightest  modulation 
of  his  voice,  give  all  the  emphasis  of  italics,  of  small  print, 
or  large  print,  or  any  other  effect  he  might  desire,  to  his 
spoken  words.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  his  wonderful  gift 
of  words  sometimes  led  him  astray.     It  was  often  such  a 


I  ^    Mr.  Gladstone.  497 

fluency  as  that  of  a  torrent  on  which  the  orator  was  car- 
ried away.  Gladstone  had  to  pay  for  his  fluency  by  being 
too  fluent.  He  could  seldom  resist  the  temptation  to 
shower  too  many  words  on  his  subject  and  his  hearers. 
Sometimes  he  involved  his  sentence  in  parenthesis  within 
parenthesis  until  the  ordinary  listener  began  to  think 
extrication  an  impossibility;  but  the  orator  never  failed 
to  unravel  all  the  entanglements,  and  to  bring  the  passage 
out  to  a  clear  and  legitimate  conclusion.  There  was  never 
any  halt  or  incoherency,  nor  did  the  joints  of  the  sentence 
fail  to  fit  together  in  the  right  way.  Harley  once  de- 
scribed a  famous  speech  as  "  a  circumgyration  of  incoherent 
words."  This  description  certainly  could  not  be  applied 
even  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  most  involved  passages;  but  if 
some  of  those  were  described  as  a  circumgyration  of 
coherent  words,  the  phrase  might  be  considered  germane 
to  the  matter.  His  style  was  commonly  too  redundant. 
It  seemed  as  if  it  belonged  to  a  certain  school  of  exuberant 
Italian  rhetoric.  Yet  it  was  hardly  to  be  called  florid. 
Gladstone  indulged  in  few  flowers  of  rhetoric,  and  his 
great  gift  was  not  imagination.  His  fault  was  simply  the 
habitual  use  of  too  many  words.  This  defect  was,  indeed, 
a  characteristic  of  the  Peelite  school  of  eloquence.  Mr. 
Gladstone  retained  some  of  the  defects  of  the  school  in 
which  he  had  been  trained,  even  after  he  had  come  to  sur- 
pass its  greatest  master. 

Often,  however,  this  superb,  exuberant  rush  of  words 
added  indescribable  strength  to  the  eloquence  of  the 
speaker.  In  passages  of  indignant  remonstrance  or  de- 
nunciation, when  word  followed  word,  and  stroke  came 
down  upon  stroke,  with  a  wealth  of  resource  that  seemed 
inexhaustible,  the  very  fluency  and  variety  of  the  speaker 
overwhelmed  his  audience.  Interruption  only  gave  him 
a  new  stimulus,  and  appeared  to  supply  him  with  fresh 
resources  of  argument  and  illustration.  His  retorts  leaped 
to  his  lips.  His  eye  caught,  sometimes,  even  the  mere 
gesture  that  indicated  dissent  or  question ;  and  perhaps 
Vol.  I. — 32 


498  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

some  unlucky  opponent  who  was  only  thinking  of  what 
might  be  said  in  opposition  to  the  great  orator  found  him- 
self suddenly  dragged  into  the  conflict,  and  overwhelmed 
with  a  torrent  of  remonstrance,  argument,  and  scornful 
words.  Gladstone  had  not  much  humor  of  the  playful 
kind,  but  he  had  a  certain  force  of  sarcastic  and  scornful 
rhetoric.  He  was  always  terribly  in  earnest.  Whether 
the  subject  were  great  or  small,  he  threw  his  whole  soul 
into  it.  Once,  in  addressing  a  school-boy  gathering,  he 
told  his  young  listeners  that  if  a  boy  ran,  he  ought  always 
to  run  as  fast  as  he  could ;  if  he  jumped,  he  ought  always 
to  jump  as  far  as  he  could.  He  illustrated  his  maxim  in 
his  own  career.  He  had  no  idea,  apparently,  of  running 
or  jumping  in  such  measure  as  happened  to  please  the 
fancy  of  the  moment.  He  always  exercised  his  splendid 
powers  to  the  uttermost  strain, 

A  distinguished  critic  once  pronounced  Mr.  Gladstone 
to  be  the  greatest  Parliamentary  orator  of  our  time,  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  made  by  far  the  greatest  number  of 
fine  .speeches,  while  admitting  that  two  or  three  speeches 
had  been  made  by  other  men  of  the  day  which  might  rank 
higher  than  any  of  his.  This  is,  however,  a  principle  of 
criticism  which  posterity  never  sanctions.  The  greatest 
speech,  the  greatest  poem,  give  the  author  the  highest 
place,  though  the  effort  were  but  single.  Shakespeare 
would  rank  beyond  Massinger  just  as  he  does  now  had 
he  written  only  "The  Tempest."  We  cannot  say  how 
many  novels,  each  as  good  as  "Gil  Bias,"  would  make  Le 
Sage  the  equal  of  Cervantes.  On  this  point  fame  is  inex- 
orable. We  are  not,  therefore,  inclined  to  call  Mr.  Glad- 
stone the  greatest  English  orator  of  our  time  when  we 
remember  some  of  the  finest  speeches  of  Mr.  Bright;  but 
did  we  regard  Parliamentary  speaking  as  a  mere  instru- 
ment of  Parliamentary  business  and  debate,  then  unques- 
tionably Mr.  Gladstone  is  not  only  the  greatest,  but  by  far 
the  greatest  English  orator  of  our  time;  for  he  had 
a  richer  combination  of  gifts  than  any  other  man  we  can 


Mr.  Ghuistone.  499 

remember,  and  he  could  use  them  oftenest  with  effect. 
He  was  like  a  racer  which  cannot  indeed  always  go  faster 
than  every  rival,  but  can  win  more  races  in  the  year  than 
any  other  horse.  Mr.  Gladstone  could  get  up  at  any 
moment,  and  no  matter  how  many  times  a  night,  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  be  argumentative  or  indignant, 
pour  out  a  stream  of  impassioned  eloquence  or  a  shower 
of  figures,  just  as  the  exigency  of  the  debate  and  the 
moment  required.  He  was  not,  of  course,  always  equal; 
but  he  was  always  eloquent  and  effective.  He  seemed  as 
if  he  could  not  be  anything  but  eloquent.  Perhaps,  judged 
in  this  way,  he  never  had  an  equal  in  the  English  Parlia- 
ment. Neither  Pitt  nor  Fox  ever  made  so  many  speeches 
combining  so  many  great  qualities.  Chatham  was  a  great 
actor  rather  than  a  great  orator.  Burke  was  the  greatest 
political  essayist  who  ever  addressed  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Canning  did  not  often  rise  above  the  level  of 
burnished  rhetorical  commonplace.  Macaulay,  who  dur- 
ing his  time  drew  the  most  crowded  houses  of  any  speaker, 
riot  even  excepting  Peel,  was  not  an  orator  in  the  true 
sense.  Probably  no  one,  past  or  present,  had  in  combina- 
tion so  many  gifts  of  voice,  manner,  fluency  and  argument, 
style,  reason  and  passion,  as  Mr.  Gladstone. 

The  House  of  Commons  was  his  ground.  There  he  was 
himself;  there  he  was  always  seen  to  the  best  advantage. 
As  a  rule,  he  was  not  so  successful  on  the  platform.  His 
turn  of  mind  did  not  fit  him  well  for  the  work  of  address- 
ing great  public  meetings.  He  loved  to  look  too  carefully 
at  every  side  of  a  question,  and  did  not  always  go  so 
quickly  to  the  heart  of  it  as  would  suit  great  popular 
audiences.  The  principal  defect  of  his  mind  was  probably 
a  lack  of  simplicity,  a  tendency  to  over-refining  and  super- 
subtle  argument.  Not  perhaps  unnaturally,  however, 
when  he  did,  during  some  of  the  later  passages  of  his 
career,  lay  himself  out  for  the  work  of  addressing  popular 
audiences,  he  threw  away  all  discrimination,  and  gave 
loose  to  the  full  force  with  which,  under  the  excitement  of 


$66  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

great  pressure,  he  was  wont  to  rush  at  a  principle.  There 
seemed  a  certain  lack  of  balance  in  his  mind;  a  want  of 
the  exact  poise  of  all  his  faculties.  Either  he  must  refine 
too  much,  or  he  did  not  refine  at  all.  Thus  he  became 
accused,  and  with  some  reason,  of  over-refining  and  all  but 
quibbling  in  some  of  his  Parliamentary  arguments ;  of  look- 
ing at  all  sides  of  a  question  so  carefully  that  it  was  too 
long  in  doubt  whether  he  was  ever  going  to  form  any 
opinion  of  his  own ;  and  he  was  sometimes  accused,  with 
equal  justice,  of  pleading  one  side  of  a  political  cause  be- 
fore great  meetings  of  his  countrymen  with  all  the  pas- 
sionate blindness  of  a  partisan.  The  accusations  might 
seem  self-contradictory,  if  we  did  not  remember  that  they 
will  apply,  and  with  great  force  and  justice,  to  Burke. 
Burke  cut  blocks  with  a  razor,  and  went  on  refining  to  an 
impatient  House  of  Commons,  only  eager  for  its  dinner; 
and  the  same  Burke  threw  himself  into  antagonism  to  the 
French  Revolution  as  if  he  were  the  wildest  of  partisans; 
as  if  the  question  had  but  one  side,  and  only  fools  or  vil- 
lains could  possibly  say  it  had  any  other. 

Mr.  Gladstone  grew  slowly  into  Liberal  convictions. 
At  the  time  when  he  joined  the  Coalition  Ministry  he  was 
still  regarded  as  one  who  had  scarcely  left  the  camp  of 
Toryism,  and  who  had  only  joined  that  ministry  because 
it  was  a  coalition.  Years  after,  he  was  applied  to  by  the 
late  Lord  Derby  to  join  a  ministry  formed  by  him ;  and 
it  was  not  supposed  that  there  was  anything  unreasonable 
in  the  proposition.  The  first  impulse  toward  Liberal  prin- 
ciples was  given  to  his  mind,  probably,  by  his  change  with 
his  leader  from  Protection  to  Free-trade.  When  a  man 
like  Gladstone  saw  that  his  traditional  principles  and 
those  of  his  party  had  broken  down  in  any  one  direction, 
it  was  but  natural  that  he  should  begin  to  question  their 
endurance  in  other  directions.  The  whole  fabric  of  belief 
was  built  up  together.  Gladstone's  was  a  mind  of  that 
order  that  sees  a  principle  in  everything,  and  must,  to 
adopt  the  phrase  of  a  great  preacher,  make  the  ploughing 


Mr.  Gladstone.  501 

as  much  a  part  of  religious  duty  as  the  praying.  The  in- 
terests of  religion  seemed  to  him  bound  up  with  the  creed 
of  Conservatism ;  the  principles  of  Protection  must,  prob- 
ably, at  one  time  have  seemed  a  part  of  the  whole  creed  of 
which  one  article  was  as  sacred  as  another.  His  intellect 
and  his  principles,  however,  found  themselves  compelled 
to  follow  the  guidance  of  his  leader  in  the  matter  of  Free- 
trade  ;  and  when  inquiry  thus  began  it  was  not  very 
likely  soon  to  stop.  He  must  have  seen  how  much  the 
working  of  such  a  principle  as  that  of  Protection  became 
a  class  interest  in  England,  and  how  impossible  it  would 
have  been  for  it  to  continue  long  in  existence  under  an 
extended  and  a  popular  suffrage.  In  other  countries  the 
fallacy  of  Protection  did  not  show  itself  so  glaringly  in  the 
eyes  of  the  poorer  classes,  for  in  other  countries  it  was  not 
the  staple  food  of  the  population  that  became  the  principal 
object  of  a  protective  duty.  But  in  England  the  bread  on 
which  the  poorest  had  to  live  was  made  to  pay  a  tax  for 
the  benefit  of  landlords  and  farmers.  As  long  as  one  be- 
lieved this  to  be  a  necessary  condition  of  a  great  unques- 
tionable creed,  it  was  easy  for  a  young  statesman  to  recon- 
cile himself  to  it.  It  might  bear  cruelly  on  individuals, 
or  even  multitudes;  but  so  would  the  law  of  gravitation, 
as  Mill  has  remarked,  bear  harshly  on  the  best  of  men 
when  it  dashed  him  down  from  a  height  and  broke  his 
bones.  It  would  be  idle  to  question  the  existence  of  the 
law  on  that  account;  or  to  disbelieve  the  whole  teaching 
of  the  physical  science  which  explains  its  movements. 
But  when  Mr.  Gladstone  came  to  be  convinced  that  there 
was  no  such  law  as  the  Protection  principle  at  all ;  that 
it  was  a  mere  sham ;  that  to  believe  in  it  was  to  be  guilty 
of  an  economic  heresy — then  it  was  impossible  for  him 
not  to  begin  questioning  the  genuineness  of  the  whole 
system  of  political  thought  of  which  it  formed  but  a  part. 
Perhaps,  too,  he  was  impelled  toward  Liberal  principles 
at  home  by  seeing  what  the  effects  of  opposite  doctrines 
had  been  abroad.     He  rendered  memorable  service  to  the 


502  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Liberal  cause  of  Europe  by  his  eloquent  protest  against 
the  brutal  treatment  of  Baron  Poerio  and  other  Liberals 
of  Naples  who  were  imprisoned  by  the  Neapolitan  king 
— a  protest  which  Garibaldi  declared  to  have  sounded  the 
first  trumpet-call  of  Italian  liberty.  In  rendering  service 
to  Liberalism  and  to  Europe,  he  rendered  service  also  to 
his  own  intelligence.  He  helped  to  set  free  his  own  spirit 
as  well  as  the  Neapolitan  people.  We  find  him,  as  his 
career  goes  on,  dropping  the  traditions  of  his  youth,  always 
rising  higher  in  Liberalism,  and  not  going  back.  One  of 
the  foremost  of  his  compeers,  and  his  only  actual  rival 
in  popular  eloquence,  eulogized  him  as  always  struggling 
toward  the  light.  The  common  taunts  addressed  to  public 
men  who  have  changed  their  opinions  were  hardly  ever  ap- 
plied to  him.  Even  his  enemies  felt  that  the  one  idea  al- 
ways inspired  him — a  conscientious  anxiety  to  do  the  right 
thing.  None  accused  him  of  being  one  of  the  politicians 
who  mistake,  as  Victor  Hugo  says,  a  weather-cock  for  a 
flag.  With  many  qualities  which  seemed  hardly  suited 
to  a  practical  politician  ;  with  a  sensitive  and  eager  temper, 
like  that  of  Canning,  and  a  turn  for  theological  argument 
that,  as  a  rule,  Englishmen  do  not  love  in  a  statesman ; 
with  an  impetuosity  that  often  carried  him  far  astray,  and 
a  deficiency  of  those  genial  social  qualities  that  go  so  far 
to  make  a  public  success  in  England,  Mr.  Gladstone 
maintained  through  the  whole  of  his  career  a  reputation 
against  which  there  was  hardly  a  serious  cavil.  The  worst 
thing  that  was  said  of  him  was  that  he  was  too  impulsive, 
and  that  his  intelligence  was  too  restless.  He  was  an 
essayist,  a  critic,  a  Homeric  scholar;  a  dilettante  in  art, 
music,  and  old  china ;  he  was  a  theological  controversialist ; 
he  was  a  political  economist,  a  financier,  a  practical  ad- 
ministrator whose  gift  of  mastering  details  has  hardly  ever 
been  equalled ;  he  was  a  statesman  and  an  orator.  No 
man  could  attempt  so  many  things  and  not  occasionally 
make  himself  the  subject  of  a  sneer.  The  intense  gravity 
and    earnestness    of    Gladstone's  mind    always,  however, 


Mr.  Gladstone.  503 

saved  him  from  the  special  penalty  of  such  versatility;  no 
satirist  described  him  as  not  one,  but  all  mankind's 
epitome. 

As  yet,  however,  he  is  only  the  young  statesman  who 
was  the  other  day  the  hope  of  the  more  solemn  and  solid 
Conservatives,  and  in  whom  they  have  not  even  yet  en- 
tirely ceased  to  put  some  faith.  The  Coalition  Ministry 
was  so  formed  that  it  was  not  supposed  a  man  necessarily 
nailed  his  colors  to  any  mast  when  he  joined  it.  More 
than  one  of  Gladstone's  earliest  friends  and  political  asso- 
ciates had  a  part  in  it.  The  ministry  might  undoubtedly 
be  called  an  Administration  of  All  the  Talents.  Except 
the  late  Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli,  it  included  almost 
every  man  of  real  ability  who  belonged  to  either  of  the 
two  great  parties  of  the  State.  The  Manchester  School 
had,  of  course,  no  place  there;  but  they  were  not  likely 
just  yet  to  be  recognized  as  constituting  one  of  the  elements 
out  of  which  even  a  Coalition  Ministry  might  be  com- 
posed. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION. 


For  forty  years  England  had  been  at  peace.  There 
had,  indeed,  been  little  wars  here  and  there  with  some  of 
her  Asiatic  and  African  neighbors;  and  once  or  twice,  as 
in  the  instance  of  the  quarrel  between  Turkey  and  Egypt, 
she  had  been  menaced  for  a  moment  with  a  dispute  of  a 
more  formidable  kind  and  nearer  home.  But  the  trouble 
had  passed  away,  and  from  Waterloo  downward  England 
had  known  no  real  war.  The  new  generation  were  grow- 
ing up  in  a  kind  of  happy  belief  that  wars  were  things  of 
the  past  for  us;  out  of  fashion;  belonging  to  a  ruder  and 
less  rational  society,  like  the  wearing  of  armor  and  the 
carrying  of  weapons  in  the  civil  streets.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing if  it  seemed  possible  to  many  that  the  England  of  the 
future  might  regard  the  instruments  and  the  ways  of  war 
with  the  same  curious  wonder  as  that  which  Virgil  assumes 
would  one  day  fill  the  minds  of  the  rustic  laborers  whose 
ploughs  turned  up  on  some  field  of  ancient  battle  the  rusted 
swords  and  battered  helmets  of  forgotten  warriors.  During 
all  the  convulsions  of  the  Continent,  England  had  remained 
undisturbed.  When  bloody  revolutions  were  storming 
through  other  capitals,  London  was  smiling  over  the  dis- 
persions of  the  Chartists  by  a  few  special  constables.  When 
the  armies  of  Austria,  of  Russia,  of  France,  of  Sardinia, 
were  scattered  over  vast  and  various  Continental  battle- 
grounds, our  troops  were  passing  in  peaceful  pageantry  of 
review  before  the  well-pleased  eyes  of  their  Sovereign  in 
some  stately  royal  park.  A  new  school  as  well  as  a  new 
generation  had  sprung  up.  This  school,  full  of  faith,  but 
full  of  practical,  shrewd  logic  as  well,  was  teaching  with 


The  Eastern  Question,  505 

great  eloquence  and  effect  that  the  practice  of  settling  in- 
ternational controversy  by  the  sword  was  costly,  barbar- 
ous, and  blundering,  as  well  as  wicked.  The  practice  of 
the  duel  in  England  had  utterly  gone  out.  Battle  was 
forever  out  of  fashion  as  a  means  of  settling  private  con- 
troversy in  England.  Why  then  should  it  be  unreasonable 
to  believe  that  the  like  practice  among  nations  might  soon 
become  equally  obsolete? 

Such,  certainly,  was  the  faith  of  a  great  many  intelli- 
gent persons  at  the  time  when  the  Coalition  Ministry  was 
formed.  The  majority  tacitly  acquiesced  in  the  belief 
without  thinking  much  about  it.  They  had  never  in  their 
time  seen  England  engaged  in  European  war;  and  it  was 
natural  to  assume  that  what  they  had  never  seen  they 
were  never  likely  to  see.  Any  one  who  retraces  atten- 
tively the  history  of  English  public  opinion  at  that  time 
will  easily  find  evidence  enough  of  a  commonly  accepted 
understanding  that  England  had  done  with  great  wars. 
Even  then,  perhaps,  a  shrewd  observer  might  have  been 
inclined  to  conjecture  that  by  the  very  force  of  reaction  a 
change  would  soon  set  in.  Man,  said  Lord  Palmerston, 
is  by  nature  a  fighting  and  quarrelling  animal.  This  was 
one  of  those  smart  saucy  generalizations  characteristic  of 
its  author,  and  which  used  to  provoke  many  graver  and 
more  philosophic  persons,  but  which  nevertheless  often 
got  at  the  heart  of  a  question  in  a  rough-and-ready  sort  of 
way.  In  the  season  of  which  we  are  now  speaking,  it  was 
not,  however,  the  common  belief  that  man  was  by  nature 
a  fighting  and  a  quarrelling  animal,  at  least  in  England. 
Bad  government,  the  arbitrary  power  of  an  aristocracy, 
the  necessity  of  finding  occupation  for  a  standing  army, 
the  ambitions  of  princes,  the  misguiding  lessons  of  romance 
and  poetry — these  and  other  influences  had  converted  man 
into  an  instrument  of  war.  Leave  him  to  his  own  im- 
pulses, his  own  nature,  his  own  ideas  of  self-interest,  and 
the  better  teachings  of  wiser  guides,  and  he  is  sure  to  re- 
main in  the  paths  of  peace.     Such  was  the  common  belief 


5o6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

of  the  year  or  two  after  the  Great  Exhibition — the  belief 
fervently  preached  by  a  few  and  accepted  without  contra- 
diction by  the  majority,  as  most  common  beliefs  are — the 
belief  floating  in  the  air  of  the  time,  and  becoming  part 
of  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  generation  was  brought 
up.  Suddenly  all  this  happy,  quiet  faith  was  disturbed, 
and  the  long  peace,  which  the  hero  of  Tennyson's  "  Maud" 
says  he  thought  no  peace,  was  over  and  done.  The  hero 
of  "  Maud"  had,  it  will  be  observed,  the  advantage  of  ex- 
plaining his  convictions  after  the  war  had  broken  out. 
The  name  was  indeed  legion  of  those  who,  under  the  same 
conditions,  discovered,  like  him,  that  they  had  never 
relished  the  long,  long  peace,  or  believed  in  it  much  as  a 
peace  at  all. 

The  Eastern  Question  it  was  that  disturbed  the  dream 
of  peace.  The  use  of  such  phrases  as  "  The  Eastern  Ques- 
tion," borrowed  chiefly  from  the  political  vocabulary  of 
France,  is  not  in  general  to  be  commended ;  but  we  can  in 
this  instance  find  no  more  ready  and  convenient  way  of 
expressing  clearly  and  precisely  the  meaning  of  the  crisis 
which  had  arisen  in  Europe.  It  was  strictly  the  Eastern 
"  question" — the  question  of  what  to  do  with  the  East  of 
Europe.  It  was  certain  that  things  could  not  remain  as 
they  then  were,  and  nothing  else  was  certain.  The  Otto- 
man Power  had  been  settled  during  many  centuries  in  the 
southeast  of  Europe.  It  had  come  in  there  as  a  con- 
queror, and  had  remained  there  only  as  a  conqueror  oc- 
cupies the  ground  his  tents  are  covering.  The  Turk  had 
many  of  the  strong  qualities  and  even  the  virtues  of  a 
great  warlike  conqueror ;  but  he  had  no  capacity  or  care 
for  the  arts  of  peace.  He  never  thought  of  assimilating 
himself  to  those  whom  he  had  conquered,  or  them  to  him. 
He  disdained  to  learn  anything  from  them;  he  did  not 
care  whether  or  no  they  learned  anything  from  him.  It 
has  been  well  remarked  that,  of  all  the  races  who  con- 
quered Greeks,  the  Turks  alone  learned  nothing  from 
their  gifted  captives.     Captive  Greece  conquered  all  the 


The  Eastern  Ouestion. 


507 


world  except  the  Turks.  They  defied  her.  She  could  not 
teach  them  letters  or  arts,  commerce  or  science.  The 
Turks  were  not,  as  a  rule,  oppressive  to  the  races  that  lived 
under  them.  They  were  not  habitual  persecutors  of  the 
faiths  they  deemed  heretical.  In  this  respect  they  often 
contrasted  favorably  with  states  that  ought  to  have  been 
able  to  show  them  a  better  example.  In  truth,  the 
Turk,  for  the  most  part,  was  disposed  to  look  with  dis- 
dainful composure  on  what  he  considered  the  religious  fol- 
lies of  the  heretical  races  who  did  not  believe  in  the 
Prophet.  They  were  objects  of  his  scornful  pity  rather 
than  of  his  anger.  Every  now  and  then,  indeed,  some 
sudden  fierce  outburst  of  fanatical  cruelty  toward  some  of 
the  subject-sects  horrified  Europe,  and  reminded  her  that 
the  conqueror  who  had  settled  himself  down  in  her  south- 
eastern corner  was  still  a  barbarian  who  had  no  right  or 
place  in  civilized  life.  But,  as  a  rule,  the  Turk  did  not 
care  enough  about  the  races  he  ruled  over  to  feel  the  im- 
pulses of  the  perverted  fanaticism  which  would  strive  to 
scourge  men  into  the  faith  itself  believes  needful  to  salva- 
tion. 

At  one  time  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  all  the  Powers 
of  civilized  Europe  would  gladly  have  seen  the  Turk  driven 
out  of  our  Continent.  But  the  Turk  was  powerful  for  a 
long  series  of  generations,  and  it  seemed  for  a  while  rather 
a  question  whether  he  would  not  send  the  Europeans  out 
of  their  own  grounds.  He  was  for  centuries  the  great 
terror,  the  nightmare,  of  Western  Europe.  When  he  be- 
gan to  decay,  and  when  his  aggressive  strength  was  prac- 
tically all  gone,  it  might  have  been  thought  that  the  West- 
ern Powers  would  then  have  managed  somehow  to  get 
rid  of  him.  But  in  the  mean  time  the  condition  of  Europe 
had  greatly  changed.  No  one  not  actually  subject  to  the 
Turk  was  afraid  of  him  any  more ;  and  other  States  had 
arisen  strong  for  aggression.  The  uncertainties  of  these 
States  as  to  the  intentions  of  their  neighbors  and  each 
other  proved  a  better  bulwark  for  the  Turks  than  any  war- 


5o8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

like  strength  of  their  own  could  any  longer  have  furnished. 
The  growth  of  the  great  Russian  empire  was  of  itself 
enough  to  change  the  whole  conditions  of  the  problem. 

Nothing  in  our  times  has  been  more  remarkable  than 
the  sudden  growth  of  Russia.  The  rise  of  the  United 
States  is  not  so  wonderful ;  for  the  men  who  made  the 
United  States  were  civilized  men ;  men  of  our  own  race, 
who  might  be  expected  to  make  a  way  for  themselves  any- 
where, and  who  were,  moreover,  put  by  destiny  in  posses- 
sion of  a  vast  and  splendid  continent  having  all  variety  of 
climate  and  a  limitless  productiveness,  and  where  they 
had  no  neighbors  or  rivals  to  molest  them.  But  Russia 
was  peopled  by  a  race  who,  even  down  to  our  own  times, 
remain  in  many  respects  little  better  than  semi-barbarous; 
and  she  had  enemies  and  obstacles  on  all  sides.  A  few 
generations  ago  Russia  was  literally  an  inland  State.  She 
was  shut  up  in  the  heart  of  Eastern  Europe  as  if  in  a  prison. 
The  genius,  the  craft,  and  the  audacity  of  Peter  the  Great 
first  broke  the  narrow  bounds  set  to  the  Russia  of  his  day, 
and  extended  her  frontier  to  the  sea.  He  was  followed, 
after  a  reign  or  two,  by  a  woman  of  genius,  daring,  un- 
scrupulousness,  and  profligacy  equal  to  his  own — the 
greatest  woman  probably  who  ever  sat  on  a  throne,  Eliza- 
beth of  England  not  even  excepted.  Catherine  the  Second 
so  ably  followed  the  example  of  Peter  the  Great  that  she 
extended  the  Russian  frontier  in  directions  which  he  had 
not  had  opportunity  to  stretch  to.  By  the  time  her  reign 
was  done  Russia  was  one  of  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe, 
entitled  to  enter  into  negotiations  on  a  footing  of  equality 
with  the  proudest  States  of  the  Continent.  Unlike  Turkey, 
Russia  had  always  showed  a  yearning  after  the  latest  de- 
velopments of  science  and  of  civilization.  There  was 
something  even  of  affectation,  provoking  the  smiles  of  an 
older  and  more  ingrained  culture,  in  the  efforts  persist- 
ently made  by  Russia  to  put  on  the  garments  of  Western 
civilization.  Catherine  the  Great,  in  especial,  had  set  the 
example  in  this  way.     She  invited  Diderot  to  her  court. 


The  Eastern  Question.  509 

She  adorned  her  cabinet  with  a  bust  of  Charles  James  Fox. 
While  some  of  the  personal  habits  of  herself  and  of  those 
who  surrounded  her  at  court  would  have  seemed  too  rude 
and  coarse  for  Esquimaux,  and  while  she  was  putting 
down  free  opinion  at  home  with  a  severity  worthy  only 
of  some  mediaeval  Asiatic  potentate,  she  was  always  talk- 
ing as  though  she  were  a  disciple  of  Rousseau's  ideas,  and 
a  pupil  of  Chesterfield  in  manners.  This  may  have  seemed 
ridiculous  enough  sometimes;  and  even  in  our  own  days 
the  contrast  between  the  professions  and  the  practices  of 
Russia  is  a  familiar  subject  of  satire.  But  in  nations,  at 
least,  the  homage  which  imitation  pays  often  wins  for  half- 
conscious  hypocrisy  as  much  success  as  earnest  and  sincere 
endeavor.  A  nation  that  tries  to  appear  more  civilized 
than  it  really  is  ends  very  often  by  becoming  more  civilized 
than  its  neighbors  ever  thought  it  likely  to  be. 

The  wars  against  Napoleon  brought  Russia  into  close 
alliance  with  England,  Austria,  Prussia,  and  other  Euro- 
pean vStates  of  old  and  advanced  civilization.  Russia  was, 
during  one  part  of  that  great  struggle,  the  leading  spirit 
of  the  alliance  against  Napoleon.  Her  soldiers  were  seen 
in  Italy  and  in  France,  as  well  as  in  the  east  of  Europe. 
The  semi-savage  State  became  in  the  eyes  of  Europe  a 
power  charged,  along  with  others,  with  the  protection  of 
the  conservative  interests  of  the  Continent.  She  was 
recognized  as  a  valuable  friend  and  a  most  formidable 
enemy.  Gradually  it  became  evident  that  she  could  be 
aggressive  as  well  as  conservative.  In  the  war  between 
Austria  and  Hungary,  Russia  intervened  and  conquered 
Austria's  rebellious  Hungarians  for  her.  Russia  had  al- 
ready earned  the  hatred  of  European  Liberals  by  her  share 
in  the  partition  of  Poland  and  her  manner  of  dealing  with 
the  Poles.  After  a  while  it  grew  to  be  a  fixed  conviction 
in  the  mind  of  the  Liberalism  of  Western  Europe  that 
Russia  was  the  greatest  obstacle  then  existing  in  civiliza- 
tion to  the  spread  of  popular  ideas.  The  Turk  was  com- 
paratively harmless  in  that  sense.     He  was  well  content 


510  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

now,  so  much  had  his  ancient  ambition  shrunk  and  his 
ancient  war  spirit  gone  out,  if  his  strong  and  restless 
neighbors  would  only  let  him  alone.  But  he  was  brought 
at  more  than  one  point  into  especial  collision  with  Russia, 
Many  of  the  provinces  he  ruled  over  in  European  Turkey 
were  of  Sclavonian  race,  and  of  the  religion  of  the  Greek 
Church.  They  were  thus  aflfined  by  a  double  tie  to  the 
Russian  people,  and  therefore  the  manner  in  which  Turkey 
dealt  with  those  provinces  was  a  constant  source  of  dispute 
between  Russia  and  her.  The  Russians  are  a  profoundly 
religious  people.  No  matter  what  one  may  think  of  their 
form  of  faith,  no  matter  how  he  may  sometimes  observe 
that  religious  profession  contrasts  with  the  daily  habits  of 
life,  yet  he  cannot  but  see  that  the  Russian  character  is 
steeped  in  religious  faith  or  fanaticism.  To  the  Russian 
fanatic  there  was  something  intolerable  in  the  thought  of 
a  Sclave  population  professing  the  religion  of  the  ortho- 
dox Church  being  persecuted  by  the  Turks.  No  Russian 
ruler  could  hope  to  be  popular  who  ventured  to  show  a 
disregard  for  the  national  sentiment  on  this  subject.  The 
Christian  populations  of  Turkey  were  to  the  Russian  sov- 
ereigns what  the  Germans  of  Schleswig-Holstein  were  to 
the  great  German  princes  of  later  years,  an  indirect  charge 
to  which  they  could  not,  if  they  would,  profess  any  indif- 
ference. A  German  prince,  in  order  to  be  popular,  had  to 
proclaim  himself  enthusiastic  about  the  cause  of  Schleswig- 
Holstein  ;  a  Russian  emperor  could  not  be  loved  if  he  did 
not  declare  his  undying  resolve  to  be  the  protector  of  the 
Christian  populations  of  Turkey.  Much  of  this  was  prob- 
ably sincere  and  single-minded  on  the  part  of  the  Russian 
people  and  most  of  the  Russian  politicians.  But  the  other 
States  of  Europe  began  to  suspect  that  mingled  up  with 
benign  ideas  of  protecting  the  Christian  populations  of 
Turkey  might  be  a  desire  to  extend  the  frontier  of  Russia 
to  the  southward  in  a  new  direction.  Europe  had  seen  by 
what  craft  and  what  audacious  enterprises  Russia  had 
managed  to  extend  her  empire  to  the  sea  in  other  quarters; 


The  Eastern  Qiiestion.  511 

it  began  to  be  commonly  believed  that  her  next  object  of 
ambition  would  be  the  possession  of  Constantinople  and 
the  Bosphorus.  It  was  reported  that  a  will  of  Peter  the 
Great  had  left  it  as  an  injunction  to  his  successors  to  turn 
all  the  efforts  of  their  policy  toward  that  object.  The 
particular  document  which  was  believed  to  be  a  will  of 
Peter  the  Great  enjoined  on  all  succeeding  Russian  sov- 
ereigns never  to  relax  in  the  extension  of  their  territory 
northward  on  the  Baltic  and  southward  on  the  Black  Sea 
shores,  and  to  encroach  as  far  as  possible  in  the  direction 
of  Constantinople  and  the  Indies.  "To  work  out  this, 
raise  wars  continually — at  one  time  against  Turkey,  at  an- 
other against  Persia ;  make  dock-yards  on  the  Black  Sea ; 
by  degrees  make  yourselves  masters  of  that  sea  as  well  as 
of  the  Baltic ;  hasten  the  decay  of  Persia,  and  penetrate  to 
the  Persian  Gulf;  establish,  if  possible,  the  ancient  com- 
merce of  the  East  via  Syria,  and  push  on  to  the  Indies, 
which  are  the  entrepot  of  the  world.  Once  there,  you  need 
not  fear  the  gold  of  England."  We  now  know  that  the 
alleged  will  was  not  genuine;  but  there  could  be  little 
doubt  that  the  policy  of  Peter  and  of  his  great  follower, 
Catherine,  would  have  been  in  thorough  harmony  with 
such  a  project.  It  therefore  seemed  to  be  the  natural 
business  of  other  European  Powers  to  see  that  the  defects 
of  the  Ottoman  Government,  such  as  they  were,  should 
not  be  made  an  excuse  for  helping  Russia  to  secure  the 
objects  of  her  special  ambition.  One  Great  Power,  above 
all  the  rest,  had  an  interest  in  watching  over  every  move- 
ment that  threatened  in  any  way  to  interfere  with  the 
highway  to  India;  still  more  with  her  peaceful  and  secure 
possession  of  India  itself.  That  Power,  of  course,  was 
England.  England,  Russia  and  Turkey  were  alike  in 
one  respect :  they  were  all  Asiatic  as  well  as  European 
powers.  But  Turkey  could  never  come  into  any  manner 
of  collision  with  the  interests  of  England  in  the  East.  The 
days  of  Turkey's  interfering  with  any  great  State  were 
long  over.     Neither  Russia  nor  England  nor  any  other 


512  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Power  in  Europe  or  Asia  feared  her  any  more.  On  the 
contrary,  there  seemed  something  like  a  natural  antago- 
nism between  England  and  Russia  in  the  East.  The  Rus- 
sians were  extending  their  frontier  toward  that  of  our  In- 
dian empire.  They  were  showing  in  that  quarter  the 
same  mixture  of  craft  and  audacity  which  had  stood  them 
in  good  stead  in  various  parts  of  Europe.  Our  officers 
and  diplomatic  emissaries  reported  that  they  were  con- 
tinually confronted  by  the  evidences  of  Russian  intrigue 
in  Central  Asia.  We  have  already  seen  how  much  in- 
fluence the  real  or  supposed  intrigues  of  Russia  had  in 
directing  our  policy  in  Afghanistan.  Doubtless  there  was 
some  exaggeration  and  some  panic  in  all  the  tales  that 
were  told  of  Russian  intrigue.  Sometimes  the  alarm 
spread  by  these  tales  conjured  up  a  kind  of  Russian  hob- 
goblin; bewildering  the  minds  of  public  servants,  and 
making  even  statesmen  occasionally  seem  like  affrighted 
children.  The  question  that  at  present  concerns  us  is  not 
whether  all  the  apprehensions  of  danger  from  Russia  were 
just  and  reasonable,  but  whether,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they 
did  exist.  They  certainly  counted  for  a  great  deal  in  de- 
termining the  attitude  of  the  English  people  toward  both 
Turkey  and  Russia.  It  was  in  great  measure  out  of  these 
alarms  that  there  grew  up  among  certain  statesmen  and 
classes  in  this  country  the  conviction  that  the  maintenance 
of  the  integrity  of  the  Turkish  empire  was  part  of  the  na- 
tional duty  of  England. 

It  is  not  too  much,  therefore,  to  say  that  the  States  of 
Europe  generally  desired  the  maintenance  of  the  Ottoman 
empire,  simply  because  it  was  believed  that  while  Turkey 
held  her  place  she  was  a  barrier  against  vague  dangers, 
which  it  was  not  worthwhile  encountering  as  long  as  they 
could  possibly  be  averted.  Sharply  defined,  the  condition 
of  things  was  this:  Russia,  by  reason  of  her  sympathy  of 
religion  or  race  with  Turkey's  Christian  populations,  was 
brought  into  chronic  antagonism  with  Turkey;  England, 
by  reason  of  her  Asiatic  possessions,  was  kept  in  just  the 


The  Eastern  Question.  51  j 

same  state  of  antagonism  to  Russia.  The  position  of 
England  was  trying  and  difficult.  She  felt  herself  com- 
pelled, by  the  seeming  necessity  of  her  national  interests, 
to  maintain  the  existence  of  a  Power  which  on  its  own 
merits  stood  condemned,  and  for  which,  as  a  Power,  no 
English  statesman  ever  cared  to  say  a  word.  The  position 
of  Russia  had  more  plausibility  about  it.  It  sounded  bet- 
ter when  described  in  an  official  document  or  a  popular 
appeal.  Russia  was  the  religious  State  which  had  made 
it  her  mission  and  her  duty  to  protect  the  suffering  Chris- 
tians of  Turkey.  England,  let  her  state  her  case  no  mat- 
ter how  carefully  or  frankly,  could  only  affirm  that  her 
motive  in  opposing  Russia  was  the  protection  of  her  own 
interests.  One  inconvenient  result  of  this  condition  of 
things  was  that  here,  among  English  people,  there  was  al- 
ways a  wide  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  national  policy 
with  regard  to  Russia  and  Turkey.  Many  public  men  of 
great  ability  and  influence  were  of  opinion  that  England 
had  no  right  to  uphold  the  Ottoman  Power  because  of  any 
fancied  danger  that  might  come  to  us  from  its  fall.  It 
was  the  simple  duty  of  England,  they  insisted,  to  be  just 
and  fear  not.  In  private  life,  they  contended,  we  should 
all  abhor  a  man  who  assisted  a  ruffian  to  live  in  a  house 
which  he  had  only  got  into  as  a  burglar,  merely  because 
there  was  a  chance  that  the  dispossession  of  the  ruffian 
might  enable  his  patron's  rival  in  business  to  become  the 
owner  of  the  premises.  The  duty,  they  insisted,  of  a  con- 
scientious man  is  clear.  He  must  not  patronize  a  ruffian, 
whatever  comes.  Let  what  will  happen,  that  he  must 
not  do.  So  it  was,  according  to  their  argument,  with  na- 
tional policy.  We  are  not  concerned  in  discussing  this 
question  just  now ;  we  are  merely  acknowledging  a  fact 
which  came  to  be  of  material  consequence  when  the  crisis 
arose  that  threw  England  into  sudden  antagonism  with 
Russia. 

That  crisis  came  about  during  the  later  years  of  the 
reign  of  the  Emperor  Nicholas.     He  saw  its  opening,  but 
Vol.  I.— 33 


514  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

not  the  close  of  even  its  first  volume.  Nicholas  was  a  man 
of  remarkable  character.  He  had  many  of  the  ways  of  an 
Asiatic  despot.  He  had  a  strong  ambition,  a  fierce  and 
fitful  temper,  a  daring  but  sometimes,  too,  a  vacillating 
will.  He  had  many  magnanimous  and  noble  qualities, 
and  moods  of  sweetness  and  gentleness.  He  reminded 
people  sometimes  of  an  Alexander  the  Great;  sometimes 
of  the  "  Arabian  Nights"  version  of  Haroun  Alraschid. 
A  certain  excitability  ran  through  the  temperament  of 
all  his  house,  which,  in  some  of  its  members,  broke  into 
actual  madness,  and  in  others  prevailed  no  farther  than  to 
lead  to  wild  outbreaks  of  temper,  such  as  those  that  often 
convulsed  the  frame  and  distorted  the  character  of  a 
Charles  the  Bold  or  a  Coeur  de  Lion.  We  cannot  date  the 
ways  and  characters  of  Nicholas'  family  from  the  years  of 
Peter  the  Great.  We  must,  for  tolerably  obvious  reasons, 
be  content  to  deduce  their  origin  from  the  reign  of  Cath- 
erine II.  The  extraordinary  and  almost  unparalleled  con- 
ditions of  the  early  married  life  of  that  much-injured, 
much-injuring  woman,  would  easily  account  for  any  aber- 
rations of  intellect  and  will  among  her  immediate  de- 
scendants. Her  son  was  a  madman;  there  was  madness, 
or  something  very  like  it,  among  the  brothers  of  the 
Emperor  Nicholas.  The  Emperor  at  one  time  was  very 
popular  in  England.  He  had  visited  the  Queen,  and  he 
had  impressed  every  one  by  his  noble  presence,  his  lofty 
stature,  his  singular  personal  beauty,  his  blended  dignity 
and  familiarity  of  manner.  He  talked  as  if  he  had  no 
higher  ambition  than  to  be  in  friendly  alliance  with  Eng- 
land. When  he  wished  to  convey  his  impressions  of  the 
highest  degree  of  personal  loyalty  and  honor,  he  always 
spoke  of  the  word  of  an  English  gentleman.  There  can, 
indeed,  be  little  doubt  tljat  the  Emperor  was  sincerely 
anxious  to  keep  on  terms  of  cordial  friendship  with  Eng- 
land ;  and,  what  is  more,  had  no  idea  until  the  very  last 
that  the  way  he  was  walking  was  one  which  England  could 
not  consent  to  tread.     His  brother  and  predecessor  had 


The  Eastern  Question.  515 

been  in  close  alliance  with  England;  his  own  ideal  hero 
was  the  Duke  of  Wellington;  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
that  when  the  division  of  the  spoils  of  Turkey  came  about, 
England  and  he  could  best  consult  for  their  own  interests 
and  the  peace  of  the  world  by  making  the  appropriation  a 
matter  of  joint  arrangement. 

We  do  not  often  in  history  find  a  great  despot  explain- 
ing in  advance  and  in  frank  words  a  general  policy  like 
that  which  the  Emperor  Nicholas  cherished  with  regard 
to  Turkey.  We  are  usually  left  to  infer  his  schemes  from 
his  acts.  Not  uncommonly  we  have  to  set  his  acts  and  the 
fair  inferences  from  them  against  his  own  positive  and  re- 
peated assurances.  But  in  the  case  of  the  Emperor  Nicho- 
las we  are  left  in  no  such  doubt.  He  told  England  exactly 
what  he  proposed  to  do.  He  told  the  story  twice  over ; 
more  than  that,  he  consigned  it  to  writing  for  pur  clearer 
understanding.  When  he  visited  England  in  1844,  for 
the  second  time,  Nicholas  had  several  conversations  with 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  with  Lord  Aberdeen,  then 
Foreign  Secretary,  about  Turkey  and  her  prospects,  and 
what  would  be  likely  to  happen  in  the  case  of  her  dissolu- 
tion, which  he  believed  to  be  imminent.  When  he  returned 
to  Russia,  he  had  a  memorandum  drawn  up  by  Count 
Nesselrode,  his  Chancellor,  embodying  the  views  which, 
according  to  Nicholas'  impressions,  were  entertained  alike 
by  him  and  by  the  British  statesmen  with  whom  he  had 
been  conversing.  Mr.  Kinglake  says  that  he  sent  this 
document  to  England  with  the  view  of  covering  his  re- 
treat, having  met  with  no  encouragement  from  the  Eng- 
lish statesmen.  Our  idea  of  the  matter  is  different.  It 
may  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  English  statesmen  did  not 
give  Nicholas  any  encouragement,  or  at  least  that  they  did 
not  intend  to  do  so;  but  it  seems  clear  to  us  that  he  be- 
lieved they  had  done  so.  The  memorandum  drawn  up  by 
Count  Nesselrode  is  much  more  like  a  formal  reminder  or 
record  of  a  general  and  oral  engagement  than  a  withdrawal 
from  a  proposal  which  was  evidently  not  likely  to  be  ac- 


5i6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

cepted.  The  memorandum  set  forth  that  Russia  and 
England  were  alike  penetrated  by  the  conviction  that  it 
was  for  their  common  interest  that  the  Ottoman  Empire 
should  maintain  itself  in  its  existing  independence  and 
extent  of  territory,  and  that  they  had  an  equal  interest  in 
averting  all  the  dangers  that  might  place  its  safety  in 
jeopardy.  With  this  object,  the  memorandum  declared, 
the  essential  point  was  to  suffer  the  Porte  to  live  in  repose 
without  needlessly  disturbing  it  by  diplomatic  bickering. 
Turkey,  however,  had  a  habit  of  constantly  breaking  her 
engagements;  and  the  memorandum  insisted  strongly  that 
while  she  kept  up  this  practice  it  was  impossible  for  her 
integrity  to  be  secure;  and  this  practice  of  hers  was  in- 
dulged in  because  she  believed  she  might  do  so  with  im- 
punity, reckoning  on  the  mutual  jealousies  of  the  cabinets, 
and  thinking  that  if  she  failed  in  her  engagements  toward 
one  of  them,  the  rest  would  espouse  her  cause.  "  As 
soon  as  the  Porte  shall  perceive  that  it  is  not  supported  by 
the  other  cabinets,  it  will  give  way,  and  the  differences 
which  have  arisen  will  be  arranged  in  a  conciliatory 
manner,  without  any  conflict  resulting  from  them." 
The  memorandum  spoke  of  the  imperative  necessity  of 
Turkey  being  led  to  treat  her  Christian  subjects  with 
toleration  and  mildness.  On  such  conditions  it  was 
laid  down  that  England  and  Russia  must  alike  desire  her 
preservation;  biit  the  document  proceeded  to  say  that, 
nevertheless,  these  States  could  not  conceal  from  them- 
selves the  fact  that  the  Ottoman  Empire  contained  within 
itself  many  elements  of  dissolution,  and  that  unforeseen 
events  might  at  any  time  hasten  its  fall.  "  In  the  uncer- 
tainty which  hovers  over  the  future,  a  single  fundamental 
idea  seems  to  admit  of  a  really  practical  application;  that 
is,  that  the  danger  which  may  result  from  a  catastrophe 
in  Turkey  will  be  much  diminished  if  in  the  event  of  its 
occurring  Russia  and  England  have  come  to  an  under- 
standing as  to  the  course  to  be  taken  by  them  in  common. 
That  understanding  will  be  the  more  beneficial  inasmuch 


The  Eastern  Question.  517 

as  it  will  have  the  full  assent  of  Austria,  between  whom 
and  Russia  there  already  exists  an  entire  accord."  This 
document  was  sent  to  London,  and  kept  in  the  archives  of 
the  Foreign  Office.  It  was  only  produced  and  made  public 
when,  at  a  much  later  day,  the  Russian  press  began  to  in- 
sist that  the  English  Government  had  always  been  in  pos- 
session of  the  views  of  Russia  in  regard  to  Turkey.  It 
seems  to  us  evident  that  the  Emperor  of  Russia  really  be- 
lieved that  his  views  were  shared  by  English  statesmen. 
The  mere  fact  that  his  memorandum  was  received  and  re- 
tained in  the  English  Foreign  Office  might  well  of  itself 
tend  to  make  Nicholas  assume  that  its  principles  were 
recognized  by  the  English  Government  as  the  basis  of  a 
common  action,  or  at  least  a  common  understanding,  be- 
tween England  and  Russia.  Nothing  is  more  easy  than  to 
allow  a  fanatic  or  a  man  of  one  idea  to  suppose  that  those 
to  whom  he  explains  his  views  are  convinced  by  him  and 
in  agreement  with  him.  It  is  only  necessary  to  listen  and 
say  nothing.  Therefore,  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  Eng- 
lish statesmen  should  have  listened  to  Nicholas  without 
saying  something  very  distinct  to  show  that  they  were  not 
admitting  or  accepting  any  combination  or  purpose;  or 
that  they  should  have  received  his  memorandum  without 
some  distinct  disclaimer  of  their  being  in  any  way  bound 
by  its  terms.  Some  of  the  statements  in  the  memorandum 
were,  at  the  least,  sufficiently  remarkable  to  have  called 
for  comment  of  some  kind  from  the  English  statesmen  who 
received  it.  For  example,  the  Emperor  of  Russia  pro- 
fessed to  have  in  his  hands  not  alone  the  policy  of  Russia, 
but  that  of  Austria  as  well.  He  spoke  for  Austria,  and 
he  stated  that  he  understood  himself  to  be  speaking  for 
England  too.  Accordingly,  England,  Austria,  and  Russia 
were,  in  his  understanding,  entering  into  a  secret  con- 
spiracy among  themselves  for  the  disposal  of  the  territory 
of  a  friendly  Power  in  the  event  of  that  Power  getting  into 
difficulties.  This  might  surely  be  thought  by  the  English 
statesmen  to  bear  an  ominous  and  painful  resemblance  to 


5i8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  kind  oi pourparlers  that  were  going  on  between  Russia, 
Prussia,  and  Austria  before  the  partition  of  Poland,  and 
might  v/ell  have  seemed  to  call  for  a  strong  and  unmis- 
takable repudiation  on  the  part  of  England.  We  could 
scarcely  have  been  too  emphatic  or  too  precise  in  convey- 
ing to  the  Emperor  of  Russia  our  determination  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  any  such  conspiracy. 

Time  went  on,  and  the  Emperor  thought  he  saw  an  oc- 
casion for  still  more  clearly  explaining  his  plans  and  for 
reviving  the  supposed  understanding  with  England.  Lord 
Aberdeen  came  into  office  as  Prime-minister  of  this  coun- 
try— Lord  Aberdeen,  who  was  Foreign  Secretary  when 
Nicholas  was  in  England  in  1844.  On  January  9th,  1853, 
before  the  re-elections  which  were  consequent  upon  the 
new  ministerial  appointments  had  yet  taken  place,  the 
Emperor  met  our  minister.  Sir  G.  Plamilton  Seymour,  at 
a  party  given  by  the  Archduchess  Helen,  at  her  palace  in 
St.  Petersburg,  and  he  drew  him  aside  and  began  to  talk 
with  him  in  the  most  outspoken  manner  about  the  future 
of  Turkey,  and  the  arrangements  it  might  be  necessary 
for  England  and  Russia  to  make  regarding  it.  The  con- 
versation was  renewed  again  and  again  afterward.  Few 
conversations  have  had  greater  fame  than  these.  One 
phrase  which  the  Emperor  employed  has  passed  into  the 
familiar  political  language  of  the  world.  As  long  as  there 
is  memory  of  an  Ottoman  empire  in  Europe,  so  long  the 
Turkey  of  the  days  before  the  Crimean  War  will  be  called 
"the  sick  man."  "We  have  on  our  hands,"  said  the  Em- 
peror, "a  sick  man — a  very  sick  man;  it  will  be  a  great 
misfortune  if  one  of  these  days  he  should  slip  away  from 
us  before  the  necessary  arrangements  have  been  made." 
The  conversations  all  tended  toward  the  one  purpose.  The 
Emperor  urged  that  England  and  Russia  ought  to  make 
arrangements  beforehand  as  to  the  inheritance  of  the 
Ottoman  in  Europe — before  what  he  regarded  as  the  ap- 
proaching and  inevitable  day  when  the  sick  man  must 
come  to  die.     The  Emperor  explained  that  he  did  not 


The  Eastern  Question.  519 

contemplate  nor  would  he  allow  a  permanent  occupation 
of  Constantinople  by  Russia;  nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  he  consent  to  see  that  city  held  by  England  or 
France,  or  any  other  Great  Power.  He  would  not  listen 
to  any  plans  for  the  reconstruction  of  Greece  in  the  form 
of  a  Byzantine  empire,  nor  would  he  allow  Turkey  to  be 
split  up  into  little  republics — asylums,  as  he  said,  for  the 
Kossuths  and  Mazzinis  of  Europe.  It  was  not  made  very 
clear  what  the  Emperor  wished  to  have  done  with  Con- 
stantinople, if  it  was  not  to  be  Russian,  nor  Turkish,  nor 
English,  nor  French,  nor  Greek,  nor  yet  a  little  republic; 
but  it  was  evident,  at  all  events,  that  Nicholas  had  made 
up  his  mind  as  to  what  it  was  not  to  be.  He  thought  that 
Servia  and  Bulgaria  might  become  independent  States; 
that  is  to  say,  independent  States,  such  as  he  considered 
the  Danubian  principalities  then  to  be,  "under  my  protec- 
tion." If  the  reorganization  of  South-eastern  Europe 
made  it  seem  necessary  to  England  that  she  should  take 
possession  of  Egypt,  the  Emperor  said  he  should  offer  no 
objection.  He  said  the  same  thing  of  Candia:  if  England 
desired  to  have  that  island,  he  saw  no  objection.  He  did 
not  ask  for  any  formal  treaty,  he  said ;  indeed,  such  ar- 
rangements as  that  are  not  generally  consigned  to  formal 
treaties;  he  only  wished  for  such  an  understanding  as 
might  be  come  to  among  gentlemen,  as  he  was  satisfied 
that  if  he  had  ten  minutes'  conversation  with  Lord  Aber- 
deen the  thing  could  be  easily  settled.  If  only  England 
and  Russia  could  arrive  at  an  understanding  on  the  sub- 
ject, he  declared  that  it  was  a  matter  of  indifference  to 
him  what  other  Powers  might  think  or  say.  He  spoke  of 
the  several  millions  of  Christians  in  Turkey  whose  rights 
he  was  called  upon  to  watch  over,  and  he  remarked — the 
remark  is  of  significance — that  the  right  of  watching  over 
them  was  secured  to  him  by  treaty. 

The  Emperor  was  evidently  under  the  impression  that 
the  interests  of  England  and  of  Russia  were  united  in  this 
proposed  transaction.     He  had  no  idea  of  anything  but 


520  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  most  perfect  frankness,  so  far  as  we  were  concerned. 
It  clearly  had  not  occurred  to  him  to  suspect  that  there 
could  be  anything  dishonorable — anything  England  might 
recoil  from — in  the  suggestion  that  the  two  Powers  ought 
to  enter  into  a  plot  to  divide  the  sick  man's  goods  between 
them  while  the  breath  was  yet  in  the  sick  man's  body. 
It  did  not  even  occur  to  him  that  there  could  be  anything 
dishonorable  in  entering  into  such  a  compact  without  the 
knowledge  of  any  other  of  the  great  European  Powers. 
The  Emperor  desired  to  act  like  a  man  of  honor;  but  the 
idea  of  Western  honor  was  as  yet  new  to  Russia,  and  it 
had  not  quite  got  possession  of  the  mind  of  Nicholas.  He 
was  like  the  savage  who  is  ambitious  of  learning  the  ways 
of  civilization,  and  who  may  be  counted  on  to  do  whatever 
he  knows  to  be  in  accordance  with  these  ways,  but  who  is 
constantly  liable  to  make  a  mistake,  simply  from  not 
knowing  how  to  apply  them  in  each  new  emergency.  The 
very  consequences  which  came  from  Nicholas'  confidential 
communications  with  our  minister  would  of  themselves 
testify  to  his  sincerity,  and  in  a  certain  sense  to  his  sim- 
plicity. But  the  English  Government  never,  after  the 
disclosure  of  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour,  put  any  faith  in 
Nicholas.  They  regarded  him  as  nothing  better  than  a 
plotter.  They  did  not,  probably,  even  make  allowance 
enough  for  the  degree  of  religious  or  superstitious  fervor 
which  accompanied  and  qualified  all  his  ambition  and  his 
craft.  Human  nature  is  so  oddly  blent  that  we  ought  not 
to  be  surprised  if  we  find  a  very  high  degree  of  fanatical 
and  sincere  fervor  in  company  with  a  crafty  selfishness. 
The  English  Government  and  most  of  the  English  people 
ever  after  looked  on  Nicholas  as  a  determined  plotter  and 
plunderer,  who  was  not  to  be  made  an  associate  in  any 
engagement.  On  the  other  hand,  Nicholas  was  as  much 
disappointed  as  an  honest  highwayman  of  the  days  of 
Captain  Macheath  might  have  been  who,  on  making  a 
handsome  offer  of  a  share  in  a  new  enterprise  to  a  trusted 
and  familiar  "pal,"  finds  that  the  latter  is  taken  with  a  fit 


The  Eastern  Question.  521 

of  virtuous  indignation,  and  is  hurrying  off  to  Bow  Street 
to  tell  the  whole  story. 

The  English  minister  and  the  English  Government 
could  only  answer  the  Emperor's  overtures  by  saying  that 
they  did  not  think  it  quite  usual  to  enter  into  arrange- 
ments for  the  spoliation  of  a  friendly  Power,  and  that 
England  had  no  desire  to  succeed  to  any  of  the  possessions 
of  Turkey.  The  Emperor,  doubtless,  did  not  believe 
these  assurances.  He  probably  felt  convinced  that  Eng- 
land had  some  game  of  her  own  in  hand  into  which  she 
did  not  find  it  convenient  to  admit  him  on  terms  of  part- 
nership. He  must  have  felt  bitterly  annoyed  at  the 
thought  that  he  had  committed  himself  so  far  for  nothing. 
The  communications  were,  of  course,  understood  to  be 
strictly  confidential ;  and  Nicholas  had  no  fear  that  they 
would  be  given  to  the  public  at  that  time.  They  were,  in 
fact,  not  made  publicly  known  for  more  than  a  year  after. 
But  Nicholas  had  the  dissatisfaction  of  knowing  that  her 
Majesty's  ministers  were  now  in  possession  of  his  de- 
signs. He  had  the  additional  discomfort  of  believing  that, 
while  he  had  shown  his  hand  to  them,  they  had  contrived 
to  keep  whatever  designs  of  their  own  they  were  preparing 
a  complete  secret  from  him.  One  unfortunate  admission, 
the  significance  of  which  will  be  seen  hereafter,  was  made 
on  the  part  of  the  English  Government  during  the  cor- 
respondence caused  by  the  conversation  between  the  Em- 
peror and  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour.  It  was  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell who,  inadvertently  no  doubt,  made  this  admission. 
In  his  letter  to  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour  on  February  9th, 
1853,  he  wound  up  with  the  words,  "The  more  the  Turk- 
ish Government  adopts  the  rules  of  impartial  law  and  equal 
administration,  the  less  will  the  Emperor  of  Russia  find  it 
necessary  to  apply  that  exceptional  protection  which  his 
Imperial  Majesty  has  found  so  burdensome  and  incon- 
venient, though  no  doubt  prescribed  by  duty  and  sanc- 
tioned by  treaty." 

These  conversations  with  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour  formed 


^22  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

but  an  episode  in  the  history  of  the  events  that  were  then 
going  on.  It  was  an  episode  of  great  importance,  even  to 
the  immediate  progress  of  the  events,  and  it  had  much  to 
do  with  the  turn  they  took  toward  war;  but  there  were 
great  forces  moving  toward  antagonism  in  the  South-east 
of  Europe  that  must,  in  any  case,  have  come  into  collision. 
Russia,  with  her  ambitions,  her  tendency  to  enlarge  her 
frontier  on  all  sides,  and  her  natural  sympathies  of  race 
and  religion  with  the  Christian  and  Sclave  populations 
under  Turkish  rule,  must  before  long  have  come  into  ac- 
tive hostility  with  the  Porte.  Even  at  the  present  some- 
what critical  time  we  are  not  under  any  necessity  to  per- 
suade ourselves  that  Russia  was  actuated  in  the  movements 
she  made  by  merely  selfish  ambition  and  nothing  else; 
that  all  the  wrong  was  on  her  side  of  the  quarrel,  and  all 
the  right  upon  ours.  It  may  be  conceded,  without  any 
abrogation  of  patriotic  English  sentiment,  that  in  standing 
up  for  the  populations  so  closely  affined  to  her  in  race  and 
religion,  Russia  was  acting  very  much  as  England  would 
have  acted  under  similar  circumstances.  If  we  can  imag- 
ine a  number  of  English  and  Christian  populations  un- 
der the  sway  of  some  Asiatic  despot  on  the  frontiers  of  our 
Indian  empire,  we  shall  admit  that  it  is  likely  the  senti- 
ments of  all  Englishmen  in  India  would  be  extremely  sen- 
sitive on  their  behalf,  and  that  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
get  us  to  believe  that  we  were  called  upon  to  interfere  for 
their  protection.  Certainly  any  one  who  should  try  to 
persuade  us  that  after  all  these  Englishmen  were  nearly 
as  well  off  under  the  Asiatic  and  despotic  rule  as  many 
other  people,  or  as  they  deserved  to  be,  would  not  have 
much  chance  of  a  patient  hearing  from  us. 

The  Russian  Emperor  fell  back  a  little  after  the  failure 
of  his  efforts  with  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour,  and  for  a  while 
seemed  to  agree  with  the  English  Government  as  to  the 
necessity  of  not  embarrassing  Turkey  by  pressing  too 
severely  upon  her.  He  was,  no  doubt,  seriously  disap- 
pointed when  he  found  that  England  would  not  go  with 


The  Eastern  Oiiestion.  <j2} 

him ;  and  his  calculations  were  put  out  by  the  discovery. 
He  therefore  saw  himself  compelled  to  act  with  a  certain 
moderation  while  feeling  his  way  to  some  other  mode  of 
attack.  But  the  natural  forces  which  were  in  operation 
did  not  depend  on  the  will  of  any  empire  or  government 
for  their  tendency.  Nicholas  would  have  had  to  move  in 
any  case.  There  is  really  no  such  thing  in  modern  poli- 
tics as  a  genuine  autocrat.  Nicholas  of  Russia  could  no 
more  afford  to  overlook  the  evidences  of  popular  and  na- 
tional feeling  among  his  people  than  an  English  sovereign 
could.  He  was  a  despot  by  virtue  of  the  national  will 
which  he  embodied.  The  national  will  was  in  decided 
antagonism  to  the  tendencies  of  the  Ottoman  Power  in 
Europe;  and  afterward  to  the  policy  which  the  English 
Government  felt  themselves  compelled  to  adopt  for  the 
support  of  that  Power  against  the  schemes  of  the  Emperor 
of  Russia. 

There  had  long  been  going  on  a  dispute  about  the  Holy 
Places  in  Palestine.  The  claims  of  the  Greek  Church  and 
those  of  the  Latin  Church  were  in  antagonism  there.  The 
Emperor  of  Russia  was  the  protector  of  the  Greek  Church  ; 
the  Kings  of  France  had  long  had  the  Latin  Church  under 
their  protection.  France  had  never  taken  our  views  as  to 
the  necessity  of  maintaining  the  Ottoman  Power  in  Europe, 
On  the  contrary,  as  we  have  seen,  the  policy  of  England 
and  that  of  France  were  so  decidedly  opposed  at  the  time 
when  France  favored  the  independence  of  Egypt,  and 
England  would  not  hear  of  it,  that  the  two  countries  very 
nearly  came  to  war.  Nor  did  France  really  feel  any  very 
profound  sympathy  with  the  pretensions  which  the  Latin 
monks  were  constantly  making  in  regard  to  the  Holy 
Places.  There  was,  unquestionably,  downright  religious 
fanaticism  on  the  part  of  Russia  to  back  up  the  demands 
of  the  Greek  Church ;  but  we  can  hardly  believe  that  opin- 
ion in  France  or  in  the  cabinets  of  French  ministers  really 
concerned  itself  much  about  the  Latin  monks,  except  in 
so  far  as  political  purposes  might  be  subserved  by  paying 


524  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

some  attention  to  them.     But  it  happened  somewhat  un- 
fortunately that  the  French  Government  began  to  be  un- 
usually active  in  pushing  the  Latin  claims  just  then.     The 
whole  dispute  on  which  the  fortunes  of  Europe  seemed  for 
a  while  to  depend  was  of  a  strangely  mediaeval  character. 
The  Holy  Places  to  which  the  Latins  raised  a  claim  were 
the  great  Church  in  Bethlehem ;  the  Sanctuary  of  the  Na- 
tivity, with  the  right  to  place  a  new  star  there  (that  which 
formerly  ornamented  it  having  been  lost) ;  the  Tomb  of 
the  Virgin;  the  Stone  of  Anointing;  the  Seven  Arches  of 
the  Virgin  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,     In  the 
reign  of  that  remarkably  pious,   truthful,   and  virtuous 
monarch,  Francis  the  First  of  France,  a  treaty  was  made 
with  the  Sultan  by  which  France  was  acknowledged  the 
protector  of   the   Holy  Places   in  Palestine,   and  of   the 
monks  of  the  Latin  Church  who  took  on  themselves  the 
care  of  the  sacred  monuments  and  memorials.     But  the 
Greek  Church  afterward  obtained  firmans  from  the  Sultan ; 
each  Sultan  gave  away  privileges  very  much  as  it  pleased 
him,  and  without  taking  much  thought  of  the  manner  in 
which  his  firman  might  affect  the  treaties  of  his  predeces- 
sors; and  the  Greeks  claimed,  on  the  strength  of  these 
concessions,  that  they  had  as  good  a  right  as  the  Latins  to 
take  care  of  the  Holy  Places.     Disputes  were  always  aris- 
ing, and  of  course  these  were  aggravated  by  the  fact  that 
France  was  supposed  to  be  concerned  in  the  protection  of 
one  set  of  disputants  and  Russia  in  that  of  another.     The 
French  and  the  Russian  Governments  did,  in  point  of  fact, 
interfere  from  time  to  time  for  the  purpose  of  making  good 
their  claims.     The  claims  at  length  came  to  be  identified 
with  the  States  which  respectively  protected  them.     An 
advantage  of  the  smallest  kind  gained  by  the  Latins  was 
viewed  as  an  insult  to  Russia;  a  concession  to  the  Greeks 
was  a  snnb  to  France.     The  subject  of  controversy  seemed 
trivial  and  odd  in  itself.      But  it  had  even  in  itself  a  pro- 
founder  significance  than  many  a  question  of  diplomatic 
etiquette  which  has  led  great  States  to  the  verge  of  war  or 


The  Eastern  Qtiestion.  525 

into  war  itself.  Mr.  Kinglake,  whose  brilliant  history  of 
the  Invasion  of  the  Crimea  is  too  often  disfigured  by  pas- 
sages of  solemn  and  pompous  monotony,  has  superfluously 
devoted  several  eloquent  pages  to  prove  that  the  sacred- 
ness  of  association  attaching  to  some  particular  spot  has 
its  roots  in  the  very  soil  of  human  nature.  The  custody 
of  the  Holy  Places  was,  in  this  instance,  a  symbol  of  a 
religious  inheritance  to  the  monastic  disputants,  and  of 
political  power  to  the  diplomatists. 

It  was  France  which  first  stirred  the  controversy  in  the 
time  just  before  the  Crimean  War.  That  fact  is  beyond 
dispute.  Lord  John  Russell  had  hardly  come  into  office 
when  he  had  to  observe,  in  writing  to  Lord  Cowley,  our 
ambassador  in  Paris,  that  "her  Majesty's  Government 
cannot  avoid  perceiving  that  the  ambassador  of  France  at 
Constantinople  was  the  first  to  disturb  the  status  quo  in 
which  the  matter  rested. "  "  Not, "  Lord  John  Russell  went 
on  to  say,  "that  the  disputes  of  the  Latin  and  Greek 
Churches  were  not  very  active,  but  without  some  political 
action  on  the  part  of  France  those  quarrels  would  never 
have  troubled  the  relations  of  friendly  Powers."  Lord 
John  Russell  also  complained  that  the  French  ambassador 
was  the  first  to  speak  of  having  recourse  to  force,  and  to 
threaten  the  intervention  of  a  French  fleet.  "  I  regret  to 
say,"  the  despatch  continued,  "that  this  evil  example  has 
been  partly  followed  by  Russia."  The  French  Govern- 
ment were,  indeed,  unusually  active  at  that  time.  The 
French  ambassador,  M.  de  Lavalette,  is  said  to  have 
threatened  that  a  French  fleet  should  appear  off  Jaffa,  and 
even  hinted  at  a  French  occupation  of  Jerusalem,  "  when," 
as  he  significantly  put  it,  "  we  should  have  all  the  sanctu- 
aries." One  French  army  occupying  Rome,  and  another 
occupying  Jerusalem,  would  have  left  the  world  in  no 
doubt  as  to  the  supremacy  of  France.  The  cause  of  all 
this  energy  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  Prince  President  had 
only  just  succeeded  in  procuring  himself  to  be  installed  as 
Emperor,  and  he  was  very  anxious  to  distract  the  attention 


526  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

of  Frenchmen  from  domestic  politics  to  some  showy  and 
startling  policy  abroad.  He  was  in  quest  of  a  policy  of 
adventure.  This  controversy  between  the  Church  of  the 
East  and  the  Church  of  the  West  tempted  him  into  activity 
as  one  that  seemed  likely  enough  to  give  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  displaying  the  power  of  France  and  of  the  new 
system  without  any  very  great  danger  or  responsibility. 
Technically,  therefore,  we  are  entitled  to  lay  the  blame 
of  disturbing  the  peace  of  Europe  in  the  first  instance  on 
the  Emperor  of  the  French.  But  while  we  must  condemn 
the  restless  and  self-interested  spirit  which  thus  set  itself 
to  stir  up  disturbance,  we  cannot  help  seeing  that  the 
quarrel  must  have  come  at  some  time,  even  if  ihe  plebiscite 
had  never  been  invited,  and  a  new  Emperor  had  never 
been  placed  upon  the  throne  of  France.  The  Emperor  of 
Russia  had  made  up  his  mind  that  the  time  had  come  to 
divide  the  property  of  the  sick  man,  and  he  was  not  likely 
to  remain  long  without  an  opportunity  of  quarrelling  with 
any  one  who  stood  at  the  side  of  the  sick  man's  bed,  and 
seemed  to  constitute  himself  a  protector  of  the  sick  man's 
interests. 

The  key  of  the  whole  controversy  out  of  which  the 
Eastern  war  arose,  and  out  of  which,  indeed,  all  subsequent 
complications  in  the  East  came  as  well,  was  said  to  be 
found  in  the  clause  of  the  Treaty  of  Kutchuk-Kainardji. 
During  the  negotiations  for  peace  that  took  place  in  Vienna 
while  the  Crimean  War  was  yet  going  on,  the  assembled 
plenipotentiaries  declared  that  the  whole  dispute  was 
owing  to  a  misinterpretation  of  a  clause  in  this  unfortunate 
treaty.  In  a  time  much  nearer  to  our  own,  the  discussion 
on  the  same  clause  in  the  same  treaty  was  renewed  with 
all  the  old  earnestness,  and  with  the  same  difference  of 
interpretation.  It  may  not,  perhaps,  give  an  uninitiated 
reader  any  very  exalted  opinion  of  the  utility  and  beauty 
of  diplomatic  arrangements  to  hear  that  disputes  covering 
more  than  a  century  of  time,  and  causing  at  least  two  great 
wars,  arose  out  of  the  impossibility  of  reconciling  two 


The  Eastern  Question.  557 

different  interpretations  of  the  meaning  of  two  or  three 
^.ines  of  a  treaty.  The  American  Civil  War  was  said,  with 
much  justice,  to  have  been  fought  to  obtain  a  definition  of 
the  limits  of  the  rights  of  the  separate  States  as  laid  down 
in  the  Constitution;  the  Crimean  War  was  apparently 
fought  to  obtain  a  satisfactory  and  final  definition  of  the 
seventh  clause  of  the  Treaty  of  Kainardji ;  and  it  did  not 
fulfil  its  purpose.  The  historic  value,  therefore,  of  this 
seventh  clause  may  in  one  sense  be  considered  greater  than 
that  of  the  famous  disputed  words  which  provoked  the 
censure  of  the  Jansenists  and  the  immortal  letters  of 
Pascal. 

The  Treaty  of  Kutchuk-Kainardji  was  made  in  1774, 
between  the  Ottoman  Porte  and  Catherine  II.  of  Russia. 
On  sea  and  land  the  arms  of  the  great  Empress  had  been 
victorious.  Turkey  was  beaten  to  her  knees.  She  had  to 
give  up  Azof  and  Taganrog  to  Russia,  and  to  declare  the 
Crimea  independent  of  the  Ottoman  empire;  an  event 
which,  it  is  almost  needless  to  say,  was  followed  not  many 
years  after  by  the  Russians  taking  the  Crimea  for  them- 
selves and  making  it  a  province  of  Catherine's  empire. 
The  Treaty  of  Kainardji,  as  it  is  usually  called,  was  that 
which  made  the  arrangements  for  peace.  When  it  exacted 
from  Turkey  such  heavy  penalties  in  the  shape  of  cession 
of  territory,  it  was  hardly  supposed  that  one  seemingly 
insignificant  clause  was  destined  to  threaten  the  very  ex- 
istence of  the  Turkish  empire.  The  treaty  bore  date  July 
loth,  1774,  and  it  was  made,  so  to  speak,  in  the  tent  of  the 
victor.  The  seventh  clause  declared  that  the  Sublime 
Porte  promised  "  to  protect  constantly  the  Christian  religion 
and  its  churches,  and  also  to  allow  the  minister  of  the  Im- 
perial Court  of  Russia  to  make,  on  all  occasions,  represen- 
tations as  well  in  favor  of  the  new  church  in  Constanti- 
nople, of  which  mention  will  be  made  in  the  fourteenth 
article,  as  in  favor  of  those  who  oflficiate  therein,  promising 
to  take  such  representations  into  due  consideration  as  being 
made  by  a  confidential  functionary  of  a  neighboring  and 


528  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

sincerely  friendly  Power."  Not  much  possibility  of  mis- 
understanding  about  these  words,  one  might  feel  inclined 
to  say.  We  turn  then  to  the  fourteenth  article  alluded  to, 
in  order  to  discover  if  in  its  wording  lies  the  perplexity  of 
meaning  which  led  to  such  momentous  and  calamitous  re- 
sults. We  find  that  by  this  article  it  is  simply  permitted 
to  the  court  of  Russia  to  build  a  public  church  of  the  Greek 
rite  in  the  Galata  quarter  of  Constantinople,  in  addition  to 
the  chapel  built  in  the  house  of  the  minister;  and  it  is  de- 
clared that  the  new  church  "shall  be  always  under  the 
protection  of  the  ministers  of  the  (Russian)  empire,  and 
shielded  from  all  obstruction  and  all  damage."  Here, 
then,  we  seem  to  have  two  clauses  of  the  simplest  meaning 
and  by  no  means  of  first-class  importance.  The  latter 
clause  allows  Russia  to  build  a  new  church  in  Constanti- 
nople; the  former  allows  the  Russian  minister  to  make 
representations  to  the  Porte  on  behalf  of  the  church  and 
of  those  who  officiate  in  it.  What  difference  of  opinion,  it 
may  be  asked,  could  possibly  arise?  The  difference  was 
this:  Russia  claimed  a  right  of  protectorate  over  all  the 
Christians  of  the  Greek  Church  in  Turkey  as  the  conse- 
quence of  the  seventh  clause  of  the  treaty.  She  insisted  that 
when  Turkey  gave  her  a  right  to  interfere  on  behalf  of  the 
worshippers  in  one  particular  church,  the  same  right  ex- 
tended so  far  as  to  cover  all  the  worshippers  of  the  same 
denomination  in  every  part  of  the  Ottoman  dominions. 
The  great  object  of  Russia  throughout  all  the  negotiations 
that  preceded  the  Crimean  War  was  to  obtain  from  the  Porte 
an  admission  of  the  existence  of  such  a  protectorate. 
Such  an  acknowledgment  would,  in  fact,  have  made  the 
Emperor  of  Russia  the  patron  and  all  but  the  ruler  of  by 
far  the  larger  proportion  of  the  populations  of  European 
Turkey.  The  Sultan  would  no  longer  have  been  master 
in  his  own  dominions.  The  Greek  Christians  would  nat- 
urally have  regarded  the  Russian  Emperor's  right  of  in- 
tervention on  their  behalf  as  constituting  a  protectorate 
far  more  powerful  than  the  nominal  rule  of  the  Sultan, 


The  Eastern  Question.  529 

They  would  have  known  that  the  ultimate  decision  of  any 
dispute  in  which  they  were  concerned  rested  with  the 
Emperor,  and  not  with  the  Sultan;  and  they  would  soon 
have  come  to  look  upon  the  Emperor,  and  not  the  Sultan, 
as  their  actual  sovereign. 

Now  it  does  not  seem  likely,  on  the  face  of  things,  that 
any  ruler  of  a  state  would  have  consented  to  hand  over  to 
a  more  powerful  foreign  monarch  such  a  right  over  the 
great  majority  of  his  subjects.  Still,  if  Turkey,  driven  to 
her  last  defences,  had  no  alternative  but  to  make  such  a 
concession,  the  Emperors  of  Russia  could  not  be  blamed 
for  insisting  that  it  should  be  carried  out.  The  terms  of 
the  article  in  the  treaty  itself  certainly  do  not  seem  to 
admit  of  such  a  construction.  But  for  the  views  always 
advocated  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  we  should  say  it  was  self- 
evident  that  the  article  never  had  any  such  meaning.  We 
cannot,  however,  dismiss  the  argument  of  such  a  man  as 
Mr.  Gladstone  as  if  it  were  unworthy  of  consideration,  or 
say  that  any  interpretation  is  obviously  erroneous  which  he 
has  deliberately  and  often  declared  to  be  accurate.  We 
may  as  well  mention  here  at  once  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
rests  his  argument  on  the  first  line  of  the  famous  article. 
The  promise  of  the  Sultan,  he  contends,  to  protect  con- 
stantly the  Christian  religion  and  its  churches,  is  an  en- 
gagement distinct  in  itself,  and  disconnected  from  the 
engagement  that  follows  in  the  same  clause,  and  which 
refers  to  the  new  building  and  its  ministrants.  The  Sultan 
engages  to  protect  the  Christian  churches;  and  with  whom 
does  he  enter  into  this  engagement?  With  the  Sovereign 
of  Russia.  Why  does  he  make  this  engagement?  Be- 
cause he  has  been  defeated  by  Russia  and  compelled  to 
accept  terms  of  peace ;  and  one  of  the  conditions  on  which 
he  is  admitted  to  peace  is  his  making  this  engagement. 
How  does  he  make  the  engagement?  By  an  article  in  a 
treaty  agreed  to  between  him  and  the  Sovereign  of  Russia. 
But  if  a  state  enters  into  treaty  engagement  with  another 
that  it  will  do  a  certain  thing,  it  is  clear  that  the  other 
Vol.  I.— 34 


530  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

state  must  have  a  special  right  of  remonstrance  and  of 
representation  if  the  thing  be  not  done.  Therefore  Mr. 
Gladstone  argues  that  as  the  Sultan  made  a  special  treaty 
with  Russia  to  protect  the  Christians,  he  gave,  in  the  very- 
nature  of  things,  a  special  right  to  Russia  to  complain  if 
the  protection  was  not  given.  We  are  far  from  denying 
that  there  is  force  in  the  argument ;  and  it  is,  at  all  events, 
worthy  of  being  recorded  for  its  mere  historical  impor- 
tance. But  Mr.  Gladstone's  was  certainly  not  the  Euro- 
pean interpretation  of  the  clause,  nor  does  it  seem  to  us 
the  interpretation  that  history  will  accept.  Lord  John 
Russell,  as  we  have  seen,  made  a  somewhat  unlucky  ad- 
mission that  the  claims  of  Russia  to  protectorate  were 
"prescribed  by  duty  and  sanctioned  by  treaty."  But  this 
admission  seems  rather  to  have  been  the  result  of  inad- 
vertence or  heedlessness  than  of  any  deliberate  intention 
to  recognize  the  particular  claim  involved.  The  admission 
was  afterward  made  the  occasion  of  many  a  severe  attack 
upon  Lord  John  Russell  by  Mr.  Disraeli  and  other  leading 
members  of  the  Opposition.  Assuredly,  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell's admission,  if  it  is  really  to  be  regarded  as  such,  was 
not  indorsed  by  the  English  Government.  Whenever  we 
find  Russia  putting  the  claim  into  plain  words,  we  find 
England,  through  her  ministers,  refusing  to  give  it  their 
acknowledgment.  During  the  discussions  before  the 
Crimean  War,  Lord  Clarendon,  our  Foreign  Secretary, 
wrote  to  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe  a  letter  embodying 
the  views  of  the  English  Government  on  the  claim.  No 
Sovereign,  Lord  Clarendon  says,  having  a  due  regard  for 
his  own  dignity  and  independence,  could  admit  proposals 
which  conferred  upon  a  foreign  and  more  powerful  sove- 
reign a  right  of  protection  over  his  own  subjects.  "  If  such 
a  concession  were  made,  the  result,"  as  Lord  Clarendon 
pointed  out,  "  would  be  that  fourteen  millions  of  Greeks 
would  henceforward  regard  the  Emperor  as  their  supreme 
protector,  and  their  allegiance  to  the  Sultan  would  be  little 
more  than  nominal,  while  his  own  independence  would 


The  Eastern  Ouestion. 


5P 


dwindle  into  vassalage. "  Diplomacy,  therefore,  was  pow- 
erless to  do  good  during  all  the  protracted  negotiations 
that  set  in,  for  the  plain  reason  that  the  only  object  of  the 
Emperor  of  Russia  in  entering  upon  negotiation  at  all  was 
one  which  the  other  European  Powers  regarded  as  abso. 
lutely  inadmissible. 

The  dispute  about  the  Holy  Places  was  easily  settled. 
The  Porte  cared  very  little  about  the  matter,  and  was 
willing  enough  to  come  to  any  fair  terms  by  which  the 
whole  controversy  could  be  got  rid  of.  But  the  demands 
of  Russia  went  on  just  as  before.  Prince  Mentschikoflf, 
a  man  of  the  Potemkin  school,  fierce,  rough,  and  unable  or 
unwilling  to  control  his  temper,  was  sent  with  demands  to 
Constantinople ;  and  his  very  manner  of  making  the  de- 
mands seemed  as  if  it  were  taken  up  for  the  purpose  of 
insuring  their  rejection.  If  the  envoy  fairly  represented 
the  sovereign,  the  demands  must  have  been  so  conveyed 
with  the  deliberate  intention  of  immediately  and  irresist- 
ibly driving  the  Turks  to  reject  every  proposition  com- 
ing from  such  a  negotiator.  Mentschikoif  brought  his 
proposals  with  him  cut  and  dr)'-  in  the  form  of  a  conven- 
tion which  he  called  upon  Turkey  to  accept  without  more 
ado.  In  other  words,  he  put  a  pistol  at  Turkey's  head  and 
told  her  to  sign  at  once,  or  else  he  would  pull  the  trigger, 
Turkey  refused,  and  Prince  Mentschikoff  withdrew  in  real 
or  affected  rage,  and  presently  the  Emperor  Nicholas  sent 
two  divisions  of  his  army  across  the  Pruth  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  Danubian  principalities. 

Diplomacy,  however,  did  not  give  in  even  then.  The 
Emperor  announced  that  he  had  occupied  the  principali- 
ties, not  as  an  act  of  war,  but  with  the  view  of  obtaining 
material  guarantees  for  the  concession  of  the  demands 
which  Turkey  had  already  declared  that  she  would  not  con- 
cede. The  English  Government  advised  the  Porte  not  to 
treat  the  occupation  as  an  act  of  war,  although  fully  admit- 
ting that  it  was  strictly  a  ^a.y/(!.y  de//i,  and  that  Turkey  would 
have  been  amply  justified  in  meeting  it  by  an  armed  re- 


5^2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

sistance  if  it  were  prudent  for  her  to  do  so.  It  would,  of 
course,  have  been  treated  as  war  by  any  strong  Power. 
We  might  well  have  retorted  upon  Russia  the  harsh  but 
not  wholly  unjustifiable  language  she  had  employed  toward 
us  when  we  seized  possession  of  material  guarantees  from 
the  Greek  Government  in  the  harbor  of  the  Piraeus.  In 
our  act,  however,  there  was  less  of  that  which  constitutes 
war  than  in  the  arbitrary  conduct  of  Russia,  Greece  did 
not  declare  that  our  demands  were  such  as  she  could  not 
admit  in  principle.  She  did  admit  most  of  them  in  prin- 
ciple, but  was  only,  as  it  seemed  to  our  Government,  or 
at  least  to  Lord  Palmerston,  trying  to  evade  an  actual  set- 
tlement. There  was  nothing  to  go  to  war  about;  and  our 
seizure  of  the  ships,  objectionable  as  it  was,  might  be  de- 
scribed as  only  a  way  of  getting  hold  of  a  material  guar- 
antee for  the  discharge  of  a  debt  which  was  not  in  princi- 
ple disputed.  But  in  the  dispute  between  Russia  and 
Turkey  the  claim  was  rejected  altogether;  it  was  declared 
intolerable;  its  principle  was  absolutely  repudiated,  and 
any  overt  act  on  the  part  of  Russia  must  therefore  have 
had  for  its  object  to  compel  Turkey  to  submit  to  a  demand 
which  she  would  yield  to  force  alone.  This  is,  of  course, 
in  the  very  spirit  of  war ;  and  if  Turkey  had  been  a  stronger 
Power,  she  would  never  have  dreamed  of  meeting  it  in 
any  other  way  than  by  an  armed  resistance.  She  was, 
however,  strongly  advised  by  England  and  other  Powers 
to  adopt  a  moderate  course ;  and,  in  fact,  throughout  the 
whole  of  the  negotiations  she  showed  a  remarkable  self- 
control  and  a  dignified  courtesy  which  must  sometimes  have 
been  very  vexing  to  her  opponent.  Diplomacy  went  to 
work  again,  and  a  Vienna  note  was  concocted  which  Rus- 
sia at  once  offered  to  accept.  The  four  great  Powers  who 
were  carrying  on  the  business  of  mediation  were  at  first 
quite  charmed  with  the  note,  with  the  readiness  of  Russia 
to  accept  it,  and  with  themselves;  and  but  for  the  inter- 
position of  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe  it  seems  highly 
probable  that  it  would  have  been  agreed  to  by  all  the 


The  Eastern  Question.  5^^ 

parties  concerned.  Lord  Stratford,  however,  saw  plainly 
that  the  note  was  a  virtual  concession  to  Russia  of  all  that 
she  specially  desired  to  have,  and  all  that  Europe  was  un- 
willing to  concede  to  her.  The  great  object  of  Russia 
was  to  obtain  an  acknowledgment,  however  vague  or  cov- 
ert, of  her  protectorate  over  the  Christians  of  the  Greek 
Church  in  the  Sultan's  dominions;  and  the  Vienna  note 
was  so  constructed  as  to  affirm,  much  rather  than  to  deny, 
'the  claim  which  Russia  had  so  long  been  setting  up.  As- 
suredly such  a  note  could  at  some  future  time  have  been 
brought  out  in  triumph  by  Russia  as  an  overwhelming 
evidence  of  the  European  recognition  of  such  a  protecto- 
rate. 

Let  us  make  this  a  little  more  plain.  Suppose  the  ques- 
tion at  issue  were  as  to  the  payment  of  a  tribute  claimed 
by  one  prince  from  another.  The  one  had  been  always 
insisting  that  the  other  was  his  vassal,  bound  to  pay  him 
tribute;  the  other  always  repudiated  the  claim  in  princi- 
ple. This  was  the  subject  of  dispute.  After  a  while  the 
question  is  left  to  arbitration,  and  the  arbitrators,  without 
actually  declaring  in  so  many  words  that  the  claim  to  the 
tribute  is  established,  yet  go  so  far  as  to  direct  the  payment 
of  a  certain  sum  of  money,  and  do  not  introduce  a  single 
word  to  show  that  in  their  opinion  the  original  claim  was 
imjust  in  principle.  Would  not  the  claimant  of  the  trib- 
ute be  fully  entitled  in  after  years,  if  any  new  doubt  of 
his  claim  were  raised,  to  appeal  to  this  arbitration  as  con- 
firming it?  Would  he  not  be  entitled  to  say,  "  The  dispute 
was  about  my  right  to  tribute.  Here  is  a  document  award- 
ing to  me  the  payment  of  a  certain  sum,  and  not  contain- 
ing a  word  to  show  that  the  arbitrators  disputed  the  prin- 
ciple of  my  claim.  Is  it  possible  to  construe  that  otherv/ise 
than  as  a  recognition  of  my  claim?"  We  certainly  cannot 
think  it  would  have  been  otherwise  regarded  by  any  im- 
partial mind.  The  very  readiness  with  which  Russia  con- 
sented to  accept  the  Vienna  note  ought  to  have  taught  its 
framers  that  Russia  found  all  her  account  in  its  vague  and 


534  -^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ambiguous  language.  The  Prince  Consort  said  it  was  a 
trap  laid  by  Russia  through  Austria;  and  it  seems  hardly 
possible  to  regard  it  now  in  any  other  light. 

The  Turkish  Government,  therefore,  acting  under  the 
advice  of  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  our  ambassador  to 
Constantinople,  who  had  returned  to  his  post  after  a  long 
absence,  declined  to  accept  the  Vienna  note  unless  with 
considerable  modifications.  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe 
showed  great  acuteness  and  force  of  character  throughout 
all  these  negotiations.  A  reader  of  Mr.  Kinglake's  his- 
tory is  sometimes  apt  to  become  nauseated  by  the  absurd 
pompousness  with  which  the  historian  overlays  his  de- 
scriptions of  "the  great  Eltchi,"  as  he  is  pleased  to  call 
him,  and  is  inclined  to  wish  that  the  great  Eltchi  could 
have  imparted  some  of  his  own  sober  gravity  and  severe 
simplicity  of  style  to  his  adulator.  Mr.  Kinglake  writes 
of  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe  as  if  he  were  describing  the 
all-compelling  movements  of  some  divinity  or  providence. 
A  devoted  imperial  historian  would  have  made  himself 
ridiculous  by  writing  of  the  great  Napoleon  at  the  height 
of  his  power  in  language  of  such  inflated  mysticism  as  this 
educated  Englishman  has  allowed  himself  to  employ  when 
describing  the  manner  in  which  our  ambassador  to  Con- 
stantinople did  his  duty  during  the  days  before  the  Cri- 
mean War.  But  the  extraordinary  errors  of  taste  and  good- 
sense  into  which  Mr.  Kinglake  occasionally  descends  cannot 
prevent  us  from  doing  justice  to  the  keen  judgment  and 
the  inflexible  will  which  Lord  Stratford  displayed  during 
this  critical  time.  He  saw  the  fatal  defect  of  the  note 
which,  prepared  in  Paris,  had  been  brought  to  its  supposed 
perfection  at  Vienna,  and  had  there  received  the  adhesion 
of  the  English  Government  along  with  that  of  the  govern- 
ments of  the  other  Great  Powers  engaged  in  the  confer- 
ence. A  hint  from  Lord  Stratford  made  the  ministers  of 
the  Porte  consider  it  with  suspicious  scrutiny,  and  they 
too  saw  its  weakness  and  its  conscious  or  unconscious 
treachery.     They  declared  that  unless  certain  modifications 


The  Eastern  Question.  5315 

were  introduced  they  would  not  accept  the  note.  The 
reader  will  at  first  think,  perhaps,  that  some  of  these  modi- 
fications were  mere  splittings  of  hairs,  and  diplomatic, 
worse  even  than  lawyer-like,  quibbles.  But,  in  truth,  the 
alterations  demanded  were  of  the  greatest  importance  for 
Turkey.  The  Porte  had  to  think,  not  of  the  immediate 
purpose  of  the  note,  but  of  the  objects  it  might  be  made  to 
serve  afterward.  It  contained,  for  instance,  words  which 
declared  that  the  Government  of  his  Majesty  the  Sultan 
would  remain  "  faithful  to  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the 
stipulations  of  the  Treaties  of  Kainardji  and  of  Adriano- 
ple,  relative  to  the  protection  of  the  Christian  religion." 
These  words,  in  a  note  drawn  up  for  the  purpose  of  satis- 
fying the  Emperor  of  Russia,  could  not  but  be  understood 
as  recognizing  the  interpretation  of  the  Treaty  of  Kainardji 
on  which  Russia  has  always  insisted.  The  Porte,  there- 
fore, proposed  to  strike  out  these  words  and  substitute  the 
following :  "  To  the  stipulations  of  the  Treaty  of  Kainardji, 
confirmed  by  that  of  Adrianople,  relative  to  the  protection 
by  the  Sublime  Porte  of  the  Christian  religion. "  By  these 
words  the  Turkish  ministers  quietly  affirmed  that  the  only 
protectorate  exercised  over  the  Christians  of  Turkey  is 
that  of  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  himself.  The  difference  is 
simply  that  between  a  claim  conceded  and  a  claim  repudi- 
ated. The  Russian  Government  refused  to  accept  the 
modifications;  and  in  arguing  against  them,  the  Russian 
minister,  Count  Nesselrode,  made  it  clear  to  the  English 
Government  that  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliflfe  was  right 
when  he  held  the  note  to  be  full  of  weakness  and  of  error. 
For  the  Russian  minister  argued  against  the  modifications 
on  the  very  ground  that  they  denied  to  the  claims  of  Rus- 
sia just  that  satisfaction  that  the  statesmanship  and  the 
public  opinion  of  Europe  had  always  agreed  to  refuse. 
The  Prince  Consort's  expression  was  appropriate:  the 
"Western  Powers  had  nearly  been  caught  in  a  trap. 

From  that  time  all  hopes  of  peace  were  over.     There 
were,  to  be  sure,  other  negotiations  still.     A  ghastly  seni- 


536  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

blance  oi  faith  in  the  possibility  of  a  peaceful  arrangement 
was  kept  up  for  awhile  on  both  sides.  Little  plans  of  ad- 
justment were  tinkered  up  and  tried,  and  fell  to  pieces 
the  moment  they  were  tried.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to 
describe  them.  Not  many  persons  put  any  faith  or  even 
professed  any  interest  in  them.  They  were  conducted  amid 
the  most  energetic  preparations  for  war  on  both  sides. 
Our  troops  were  moving  toward  Malta;  the  streets  of  Lon- 
don, of  Liverpool,  of  Southampton,  and  other  towns,  were 
ringing  with  the  cheers  of  enthusiastic  crowds  gathered  to- 
gether to  watch  the  marching  of  troops  destined  for  the 
East.  Turkey  had  actually  declared  war  against  Russia. 
People  now  were  anxious  rather  to  see  how  the  war  would 
open  between  Russia  and  the  allies  than  when  it  would 
open :  the  time  when  could  evidently  only  be  a  question  of 
a  few  days ;  the  way  how  was  a  matter  of  more  peculiar  in- 
terest. We  had  known  so  little  of  war  for  nearly  forty 
years  that  added  to  all  the  other  emotions  which  the  com- 
ing of  battle  must  bring  was  the  mere  feeling  of  curiosity  as 
to  the  sensation  produced  by  a  state  of  war.  It  was  an 
abstraction  to  the  living  generation — a  thing  to  read  of 
and  discuss  and  make  poetry  and  romance  out  of ;  but  they 
could  not  yet  realize  what  itself  was  like. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

WHERE    WAS    LORD    PALMERSTON? 

Meantime  where  was  Lord  Palmerston?  He  of  all  men, 
one  would  think,  must  have  been  pleased  with  the  turn 
things  were  taking.  He  had  had  from  the  beginning  lit- 
tle faith  in  any  issue  of  the  negotiations  but  war.  Prob- 
ably he  did  not  really  wish  for  any  other  result.  We  are 
well  inclined  to  agree  with  Mr.  Kinglake  that  of  all  the 
members  of  the  cabinet  he  alone  clearly  saw  his  way,  and 
was  satisfied  with  the  prospect.  But  according  to  the  sup- 
posed nature  of  his  office  he  had  now  nothing  to  do  with 
the  war  or  with  foreign  affairs  except  as  every  member  of 
the  cabinet  shares  the  responsibilities  of  the  whole  body. 
He  had  apparently  about  as  much  to  do  with  the  war  as 
the  Postmaster-general  or  the  Chancellor  for  the  Duchy  of 
Lancaster  might  have.  He  had  accepted  the  office  of 
Home  Secretary;  he  had  declared  that  he  did  not  choose 
to  be  Foreign  Secretary  any  more.  He  affirmed  that  he 
wanted  to  learn  something  about  home  affairs  and  to  get 
to  understand  his  countrymen,  and  so  forth.  He  was  really 
very  busy  all  this  time  in  his  new  duties.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston was  a  remarkably  efficient  and  successful  Home  Sec- 
retary. His  unceasing  activity  loved  to  show  itself  in 
whatever  department  he  might  be  called  upon  to  occupy. 
He  brought  to  the  somewhat  prosaic  duties  of  his  new  office 
not  only  all  the  virile  energy  but  also  all  the  enterprise 
which  he  had  formerly  shown  in  managing  revolutions 
and  dictating  to  foreign  courts.  The  ticket-of-leave  sys- 
tem dates  from  the  time  of  his  administration.  Our  trans- 
portation system  had  broken  down;  for,  in  fact,  the  colo- 
nies would  stand  it  no  longer  and  it  fell  to  Lord  Palmerston 


538  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

to  find  something  to  put  in  its  place ;  and  the  plan  of  grant- 
ing tickets-of-leave  to  convicts  who  had  shown  that  they 
were  capable  of  regeneration  was  the  outcome  of  the  ne- 
cessity and  of  his  administration.  The  measures  to  abate 
the  smoke  nuisance  by  compelling  factories  under  penal- 
ties to  consume  their  own  smoke  is  also  the  offspring  of 
Palmerston's  activity  in  the  Home  Office.  The  Factory 
Acts  were  extended  by  him.  He  went  energetically  to 
work  in  the  shutting  up  of  graveyards  in  the  metropolis ; 
and  in  a  letter  to  his  brother  he  declared  that  he  should 
like  to  "  put  down  beer-shops  and  let  shopkeepers  sell  beer 
like  oil  and  vinegar  and  treacle  to  be  carried  home  and 
drunk  with  wives  and  children." 

This  little  project  is  worthy  of  notice,  because  it  illus- 
trates, more  fairly  perhaps  than  some  far  greater  plan 
might  do,  at  once  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  Palm- 
erston's intelligence.  He  could  not  see  why  everything 
should  not  be  done  in  a  plain  straightforward  way,  and 
why  the  arrangements  that  were  good  for  the  sale  of  one 
thing  might  not  be  good  also  for  the  sale  of  another.  He 
did  not  stop  to  inquire  whether,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  beer 
is  a  commodity  at  all  like  oil,  and  vinegar,  and  treacle ; 
whether  the  same  consequences  follow  the  drinking  of 
beer  and  the  consumption  of  treacle.  His  critics  said  that 
he  was  apt  to  manage  his  foreign  affairs  on  the  same 
rough-and-ready  principle.  Tf  a  system  suited  England, 
why  should  it  not  suit  all  other  places  as  well.  Tf  treacle 
may  be  sold  safely  without  any  manner  of  authoritative 
regulation,  why  not  beer?  The  answer  to  the  latter  ques- 
tion is  plain — because  treacle  is  not  beer.  So,  people  said, 
with  Palmerston's  constitutional  projects  for  every  place. 
Why  should  not  that  which  suits  England  suit  also  Spain? 
Because,  to  begin  with,  a  good  many  people  urged,  Spain 
is  not  England. 

There  was  one  department  of  his  duties  in  which  Palm- 
erston  was  acquiring  a  new  and  a  somewhat  odd  reputa- 
tion.    That  was  in  his  way  of  answering  deputations  and 


Where  Was  Lord  Piilmersfoii  ?  ^^^ 

letters.  "  The  mere  routine  business  of  the  Home  Ofifice, " 
Palmerston  writes  to  liis  brother,  "  as  far  as  that  consists 
in  daily  correspondence,  is  far  lighter  than  that  of  the 
Foreign  Office.  But  during  a  session  of  Parliament  the 
whole  time  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  up  to  the  time  when 
he  must  go  to  the  House  of  Commons,  is  taken  up  by  the 
deputations  of  all  kinds,  and  interviews  with  members  of 
Parliament,  militia  colonels,  etc."  Lord  Palmerston  was 
always  civil  and  cordial ;  he  was  full  of  a  peculiar  kind  of 
fresh  common-sense,  and  always  ready  to  apply  it  to  any 
subject  whatever.  He  could  at  any  time  say  some  racy 
thing  which  set  the  public  wondering  and  laughing.  He 
gave  something  like  a  shock  to  the  Presbytery  of  Edin- 
burgh when  they  wrote  to  him,  through  the  moderator,  to 
ask  whether  a  national  fast  ought  not  to  be  appointed  in 
consequence  of  the  appearance  of  cliolera.  Lord  Pal- 
merston gravely  admonished  the  Presbytery  that  the  Maker 
of  the  universe  had  appointed  certain  laws  of  nature  for  the 
planet  on  which  we  live,  and  that  the  weal  or  woe  of  man- 
kind depends  on  the  observance  of  those  laws — one  of  them 
connecting  health  "with  the  absence  of  those  noxious  ex- 
halations which  proceed  from  overcrowded  human  beings, 
or  from  decomposing  substances,  whether  animal  or  vege- 
table."  He  therefore  recommended  that  the  purification 
of  towns  and  cities  should  be  more  strenuously  carried  on, 
and  remarked  that  the  causes  and  sources  of  contagion,  if 
allowed  to  remain,  "  will  infallibly  breed  pestilence  and 
be  fruitful  in  death,  in  spite  of  all  the  prayers  and  fastings 
of  a  united  but  inactive  nation."  When  Lord  Stanley  of 
Alderley  applied  to  Lord  Palmerston  for  a  special  permis- 
sion for  a  deceased  dignitary  of  a  church  to  be  buried  under 
the  roof  of  the  sacred  building,  the  Home  Secretary  de- 
clined to  accede  to  the  request  in  a  letter  that  might  have 
come  from,  or  might  have  delighted,  Sydney  Smith. 
"  What  special  connection  is  there  between  church  digni- 
ties and  the  privilege  of  being  decomposed  under  the  feet 
of  survivors?    Do  you  seriously  mean  to  imply  that  a  soul 


540  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

is  more  likely  to  go  to  heaven  because  the  body  which  it 
inhabited  lies  decomposing  under  the  pavement  of  a  church 
instead  of  being  placed  in  a  church-yard?  .  .  .  England 
is,  I  believe,  the  only  country  in  which,  in  these  days, 
people  accumulate  putrefying  dead  bodies  amid  the  dwel- 
lings of  the  living,  and  as  to  burying  bodies  under  thronged 
churches,  you  might  as  well  put  them  under  libraries, 
drawing-rooms,  and  dining-rooms." 

Lord  Palmerston  did  not  see  what  a  very  large  field  of 
religious  and  philosophical  controversy  he  opened  up  by 
some  of  his  arguments,  both  as  to  the  fasting  and  as  to  the 
burial  in  church-yards.  He  only  saw,  for  the  moment, 
what  appeared  to  him  the  healthy  common-sense  aspect  of 
the  position  he  had  taken  up,  and  did  not  think  or  care 
about  what  other  positions  he  might  be  surrendering  by 
the  very  act.  He  had  not  a  poetic  or  philosophic  mind. 
In  clearing  his  intelligence  from  all  that  he  would  have 
called  prejudice  or  superstition,  he  had  cleared  out  also 
much  of  the  deeper  sympathetic  faculty  which  enables  one 
man  to  understand  the  feelings  and  get  at  the  springs  of 
conduct  in  the  breasts  of  other  men.  No  one  can  doubt 
that  his  jaunty  way  of  treating  grave  and  disputed  sub- 
jects offended  many  pure  and  simple  minds.  Yet  it  was 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  mere  levity  dictated  his  way  of 
dealing  with  the  prejudices  of  others.  He  had  often  given 
the  question  his  deepest  attention  and  come  to  a  conclusion 
with  as  much  thought  as  his  temperament  would  have  al- 
lowed to  any  subject.  The  difference  between  him  and 
graver  men  was  that  when  he  had  come  to  a  conclusion 
seriously,  he  loved  to  express  his  views  humorously.  He 
resembled  in  this  respect  some  of  the  greatest  and  the 
most  earnest  men  of  his  time.  Count  Cavour  delighted 
in  jocose  and  humorous  answers ;  so  did  President  Lincoln ; 
so  at  one  period  of  his  public  career  did  Prince  Bismarck. 
But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Palmerston  often  made 
enemies  by  his  seeming  levity,  when  another  man  could 
easily  have  made  friends  by  saying  just  the  same  thing  in 


Where  Was  Lord  Pa/wersfon?  541 

grave  words.      The  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons 
liked  him  because  he  amused  them  and  made  them  lau<'h 
and  they  thought  no  more  of  the  matter. 

But  the  war  is  now  fairly  launched,  and  Palmerston  is 
to  all  appearance  what  would  be  vulgarly  called  "  out  of  the 
swim."  Every  eye  was  turned  to  him.  He  was  like  Pitt 
standing  up  on  one  of  the  back  benches  to  support  the  ad- 
ministration of  Addington.  For  years  he  had  been  identi- 
fied with  the  Foreign  Office,  and  with  that  sort  of  foreign 
policy  which  would  seem  best  suited  to  the  atmosphere 
of  war;  and  now  war  is  on  foot,  and  Palmerston  is  in  the 
Home  Office  pleasantly  "chaffing"  militia  colonels,  and 
making  sensitive  theologians  angry  by  the  flippancy  of  his 
replies.  Perhaps  there  was  something  flattering  to  Pal- 
merston's  feeling  of  self-love  in  the  curious  wonder  with 
which  people  turned  their  eyes  upon  him  during  all  that 
interval.  Every  one  seemed  to  ask  how  the  country  was 
to  get  on  without  him  to  manage  its  foreign  affairs,  and 
when  he  would  be  good  enough  to  come  down  from  his 
quiet  seat  in  the  Home  Office  and  assume  what  seemed 
his  natural  duties.  A  famous  tenor  singer  of  our  day 
once  had  some  quarrel  with  his  manager.  The  singer 
withdrew  from  the  company;  some  one  else  had  to  be  put 
in  his  place.  On  the  first  night,  when  the  new  man  made 
his  appearance  before  the  public,  the  great  singer  was 
seen  in  a  box  calmly  watching  the  performance  like  any 
other  of  the  audience.  The  new  man  turned  out  a  failure. 
The  eyes  of  the  house  began  to  fix  themselves  upon  the  one 
who  could  sing,  but  who  was  sitting  as  unconcernedly  in 
his  box  as  if  he  never  meant  to  sing  any  more.  The  audi- 
ence at  first  were  incredulous.  It  was  in  a  great  provincial 
city  where  the  singer  had  always  been  a  prime  favorite. 
They  could  not  believe  that  they  were  in  good  faith  to  be 
expected  to  put  up  with  bad  singing  while  he  was  there. 
At  last  their  patience  gave  way.  They  insisted  on  the 
one  singer  leaving  his  place  on  the  stage,  and  the  other 
coming  down  from  his  box  and  his  easy  attitude  of  un- 


54^  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

concern,  and  resuming  what  they  regarded  as  his  proper 
part.  They  would  have  their  way;  they  carried  their 
point ;  and  the  man  who  could  sing  was  compelled  at  last 
to  return  to  the  scene  of  his  old  triumphs  and  sing  for 
them  again.  The  attitude  of  Lord  Palmerston,  and  the 
manner  in  which  the  public  eyes  were  turned  upon  him 
•during  the  early  days  of  the  war,  could  hardly  be  illustrated 
more  effectively  than  by  this  story.  As  yet  the  only 
wonder  was  why  he  did  not  take  somehow  the  director- 
ship of  affairs ;  the  time  was  to  come  when  the  general 
voice  would  insist  upon  his  doing  so. 

One  day  a  startling  report  ran  through  all  circles.  It 
was  given  out  that  Palmerston  had  actually  resigned.  So 
far  was  he  from  any  intention  of  taking  on  himself  the 
direction  of  affairs — even  of  war  or  of  foreign  affairs — 
that  he  appeared  to  have  gone  out  of  the  ministry  alto- 
gether. The  report  was  confirmed:  Palmerston  actually 
had  resigned.  It  was  at  once  asserted  that  his  resignation 
was  caused  by  difference  of  opinion  between  him  and  his 
colleagues  on  the  Eastern  policy  of  the  Government.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  was  as  stoutly  affirmed  that  the  dif- 
ference of  opinion  had  only  to  do  with  the  new  Reform 
Bill  which  Lord  John  Russell  was  preparing  to  introduce. 
Now  it  is  certain  that  Lord  Palmerston  did  differ  in  opin- 
ion with  Lord  John  Russell  on  the  subject  of  his  Reform 
Bill.  It  is  certain  that  this  was  the  avowed  cause,  and 
the  only  avowed  cause,  of  Palmerston 's  resignation.  But 
it  is  equally  certain  that  the  real  cause  of  the  resignation 
v/as  the  conviction  in  Palmerston 's  mind  that  his  colleagues 
were  not  up  to  the  demands  of  the  crisis  in  regard  to  the 
Eastern  war.  Lord  Palmerston 's  letters  to  his  brother  on 
the  subject  are  amusing.  They  resemble  some  of  the 
epistles  which  used  to  pass  between  suspected  lovers  in 
old  days,  and  in  which  the  words  were  so  arranged  that 
the  sentences  conveyed  an  obvious  meaning  good  enough 
for  the  eye  of  jealous  authority,  but  had  a  very  different 
tale  to  tell  to  the  one  being  for  whom  the  truth  was  in- 


Where  Was  Lord  Pa/merston?  543 

tended.  Lord  Palmerston  gives  his  brother  a  long  and 
circumstantial  account  of  the  differences  about  the  Reform 
Bill,  and  about  the  impossibility  of  a  Home  Secretary 
either  supporting  by  speech  a  Bill  he  did  not  like,  or  sit- 
ting silent  during  the  whole  discussion  on  it  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  He  shows  that  he  could  not  possibly  do 
otherwise  under  such  trying  circumstances  than  resign. 
The  whole  letter,  .imtil  we  come  to  the  very  last  paragraph, 
is  about  the  Reform  Bill,  and  nothing  else.  One  might 
suppose  that  nothing  else  whatever  was  entering  into  the 
writer's  thoughts.  But  at  the  end  Palmerston  just  remem- 
bers to  add  that  the  Times  was  telling  "an  untruth"  when 
it  said  there  had  been  no  difference  in  the  cabinet  about 
Eastern  affairs;  for,  in  fact,  there  had  been  some  little 
lack  of  agreement  on  the  subject,  but  it  would  have  looked 
rather  silly,  Palmerston  thinks,  if  he  were  to  have  gone  out 
of  ofifice  merely  because  he  could  not  have  his  own  way  about 
Turkish  affairs.  Exactly ;  and  in  a  few  days  after  Palm- 
erston was  induced  to  withdraw  his  resignation,  and  to  re- 
main in  the  Government ;  and  then  he  wrote  to  his  brother 
again,  explaining  how  and  all  about  it.  He  explains 
that  several  members  of  the  cabinet  told  him  they  con- 
sidered the  details  of  the  Reform  Bill  quite  open  to  dis- 
cussion, and  so  forth.  "Their  earnest  representations, 
and  the  knowledge  that  the  cabinet  had  on  Thursday  taken 
a  decision  on  Turkish  affairs  in  entire  accordance  with 
opinions  which  I  had  long  unsuccessfully  pressed  upon 
them,  decided  me  to  withdraw  my  resignation,  which  I 
did  yesterday."  "Of  course,"  Lord  Palmerston  quietly 
adds,  "what  I  say  to  you  about  the  cabinet  decision  on 
Turkish  affairs  is  entirely  for  yourself,  and  not  to  be  men- 
tioned to  anybody ;  but  it  is  very  important,  and  will  give 
the  allied  squadrons  the  command  of  the  Black  Sea."  All 
this  was  very  prudent,  of  course,  and  very  prettily  ar- 
ranged. But  we  doubt  whether  a  single  man  in  England 
who  cared  anything  about  the  whole  question  was  imposed 
upon  for  one  moment.     Nobody  believed  that  at  such  a 


544  -^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

time  Lord  Palmerston  would  have  gone  out  of  office  be- 
cause he  did  not  quite  like  the  details  of  a  Reform  Bill, 
or  that  the  cabinet  would  have  obstinately  clung  to  such  a 
scheme  just  then  in  spite  of  his  opposition.  Indeed,  the 
first  impression  of  every  one  was  that  Palmerston  had 
gone  out  only  in  order  to  come  back  again  much  stronger 
than  before ;  that  he  resigned  when  he  could  not  have  his 
way  in  Eastern  affairs;  and  that  he  would  resume  office 
empowered  to  have  his  way  in  everything.  The  explana- 
tions about  the  Reform  Bill  found  as  impatient  listeners 
among  the  public  at  large  as  the  desperate  attempts  of  the 
young  heroine  in  "  She  Stoops  to  Conquer"  to  satisfy  hon- 
est Tony  Lumpkin  with  her  hasty  and  ill-concocted  de- 
vices about  Shakebag  and  Green  and  the  rest  of  them, 
whose  story  she  pretends  to  read  for  him  from  the  letter 
which  is  not  intended  to  reach  the  suspicious  ears  of  his 
mother.  When  Lord  Palmerston  resumed  his  place  in  the 
ministry,  the  public  at  large  felt  certain  that  the  war  spirit 
was  now  at  last  to  have  its  way,  and  that  the  dallyings  of 
the  peace-lovers  were  over. 

Nor  was  England  long  left  to  guess  at  the  reason  why 
Lord  Palmerston  had  so  suddenly  resigned  his  office,  and 
so  suddenly  returned  to  it.  A  great  disaster  had  fallen 
upon  Turkey.  Her  fleet  had  been  destroyed  by  the  Rus- 
sians at  Sinope,  in  the  Black  Sea.  Sinope  is,  or  was,  a 
considerable  seaport  town  and  naval  station  belonging  to 
Turkey,  and  standing  on  a  rocky  promontory  on  the  south- 
ern shore  of  the  Black  Sea.  On  November  30th,  1853,  the 
Turkish  squadron  was  lying  there  at  anchor.  The  squad- 
ron consisted  of  seven  frigates,  a  sloop,  and  a  steamer.  It 
had  no  ship  of  the  line.  The  Russian  fleet,  consisting  of 
six  ships  of  the  line  and  some  steamers,  had  been  cruising 
about  the  Black  Sea  for  several  days  previously,  issuing 
from  Sebastopol,  and  making  an  occasional  swoop  now 
and  then  as  if  to  bear  down  upon  the  Turkish  squadron. 
The  Turkish  commander  was  quite  aware  of  the  danger, 
and  pressed  for  reinforcements;  but  nothing  was  done, 


Where  Was  Lord  Palmerston  ?  545 

either  by  the  Turkish  Government  or  by  the  ambassadors 
•  of  the  allies  at  Constantinople.  On  November  30th,  how- 
ever, the  Sebastopol  fleet  did  actually  bear  down  upon  the 
Turkish  vessels  lying  at  Sinope.  The  Turks,  seeing  that 
an  attack  was  coming  at  last,  not  only  accepted  but  even 
anticipated  it;  for  they  were  the  first  to  fire.  The  fight 
was  hopeless  for  them.  They  fought  with  all  the  desper- 
ate energy  of  fearless  and  unconquerable  men ;  unconquer- 
able, at  least,  in  the  sense  that  they  would  not  yield.  But 
the  odds  were  too  much  against  them  to  give  them  any 
chance.  Either  they  would  not  haul  down  their  flag, 
which  is  very  likely,  or  if  they  did  strike  their  colors  the 
Russian  admiral  did  not  see  the  signal.  The  fight  went 
on  until  the  whole  Turkish  squadron,  save  for  the  steamer, 
was  destroyed.  It  was  asserted  on  official  authority  that 
more  than  four  thousand  Turks  were  killed ;  that  the  sur- 
vivors hardly  numbered  four  hundred ;  and  that  of  these 
every  man  was  wounded.  Sinope  itself  was  much  shat- 
tered and  battered  by  the  Russian  fleet.  The  affair  was 
at  once  the  destruction  of  the  Turkish  ships  and  an  attack 
upon  Turkish  territory. 

This  was  "  the  massacre  of  Sinope. "  When  the  news 
came  to  England  there  arose  one  cry  of  grief  and  anger 
and  shame.  It  was  regarded  as  a  deliberate  act  of  treach- 
ery, consummated  amid  conditions  of  the  most  hideous 
barbarity.  A  clamor  arose  against  the  Emperor  of  Russia, 
as  if  he  were  a  monster  outside  the  pale  of  civilized  law, 
like  some  of  the  furious  and  treacherous  despots  of  me- 
diaeval Asiatic  history .  Mr.  Kinglake  has  shown — and,  in- 
deed, the  sequence  of  events  must  in  time  have  shown 
every  one — that  there  was  no  foundation  for  these  accusa- 
tions. The  attack  was  not  treacherous,  but  openly  made; 
not  sudden,  but  clearly  announced  by  previous  acts,  and 
long  expected,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  Turkish  com- 
mander himself;  and  it  was  not  in  breach  even  of  the 
courtesies  of  war.  Russia  and  Turkey  were  not  only 
formally  but  actually  at  war.  The  Turks  were  the  first  to 
Vol.  I.— 35 


t,46  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

begin  the  actual  military  operations.  More  than  five 
weeks  before  the  affair  at  Sinope  they  had  opened  the 
business  by  firing  from  a  fortress  on  a  Russian  flotilla;  a 
few  days  after  this  act  they  crossed  the  Danube  at  Wid- 
din,  and  occupied  Kalafat;  and  for  several  days  they  had 
fought  under  Omar  Pasha  with  brilliant  success  against 
the  Russians  at  Oltenitza.  All  England  had  been  en- 
thusiastic about  the  bravery  which  the  Turks  had  shown 
at  Oltenitza,  and  the  success  which  had  attended  their 
first  encounter  with  the  enemy.  It  was  hardly  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  Emperor  of  Russia  would  only  fight  where 
he  was  at  a  disadvantage,  and  refrain  from  attack  where 
his  power  was  overwhelming.  Still,  there  was  an  impres- 
sion among  English  and  French  statesmen  that  while 
negotiations  for  peace  were  actually  going  on  between  the 
Western  Powers  and  Russia,  and  while  the  fleets  of  Eng- 
land and  France  were  remaining  peacefully  at  anchor  in 
the  Bosphorus,  whither  they  had  been  summoned  by  this 
time,  the  Russian  Emperor  would  abstain  from  complicat- 
ing matters  by  making  use  of  his  Sebastopol  fleet.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  unwise  than  to  act  upon  an  impres- 
sion of  this  kind  as  if  it  were  a  regular  agreement.  But 
the  English  public  did  not  imderstand  at  that  moment  the 
actual  condition  of  things,  and  may  well  have  supposed 
that  if  our  Government  seemed  secure  and  content,  there 
must  have  been  some  definite  arrangement  to  create  so 
happy  a  condition  of  mind.  It  may  look  strange  to  read- 
ers now,  surveying  this  chapter  of  past  history  with  cool, 
unimpassioned  minds,  that  anybody  could  have  believed  in 
the  existence  of  any  arrangement  by  virtue  of  which  Turkey 
could  be  at  war  with  Russia  and  not  at  war  with  her  at  the 
same  time ;  which  would  have  allowed  Turkey  to  strike 
her  enemy  when  and  how  she  pleased,  and  would  have  re- 
stricted the  enemy  to  such  time,  place,  and  method  of  re- 
tort as  might  suit  the  convenience  of  the  neutral  Powers. 
But  at  the  time,  when  the  true  state  of  affairs  was  little 
known  in  England,  the  account  of  the  "  massacre  of  Sinope" 


Where  Was  Lord  Palmerston  ?  547 

was  received  as  if  it  had  been  the  tale  of  some  unparalleled 
act  of  treachery  and  savagery ;  and  the  eagerness  of  the 
country  for  war  against  Russia  became  inflamed  to  actual 
passion. 

It  was  at  that  moment  that  Palmerston  resigned  his 
office.  The  cabinet  were  still  not  prepared  to  go  as  far  as 
he  would  have  gone.  They  had  believed  that  the  vSebas- 
topol  fleet  would  do  nothing  as  long  as  the  Western  Powers 
kept  talking  about  peace;  they  now  believed,  perhaps, 
that  the  Emperor  of  Russia  would  say  he  was  very  sorry 
for  what  had  been  done,  and  promise  not  to  do  so  any 
more.  Lord  Palmerston,  supported  by  the  urgent  press-. 
lire  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  succeeded,  however, 
in  at  last  overcoming  their  determination.  It  was  agreed 
that  some  decisive  announcement  should  be  made  to  the 
Emperor  of  Russia  on  the  part  of  England  and  France; 
and  Lord  Palmerston  resumed  his  place,  master  of  the 
situation.  This  was  the  decision  of  which  he  had  spoken 
in  his  letter  to  his  brother ;  the  decision  which  he  said  he 
had  long  unsuccessfully  pressed  upon  his  colleagues,  and 
which  would  give  the  allied  squadrons  the  command  of 
the  Black  Sea.  It  was,  in  fact,  an  intimation  to  Russia 
that  France  and  England  were  resolved  to  prevent  any 
repetition  of  the  Sinope  affair;  that  their  squadrons  would 
enter  the  Black  Sea  with  orders  to  request,  and,  if  neces- 
sary, to  constrain,  every  Russian  ship  met  in  the  Euxine 
to  return  to  Sebastopol ;  and  to  repel  by  force  any  act  of 
aggression  afterward  attempted  against  the  Ottoman  ter- 
ritory or  flag.  This  was  not,  it  should  be  observed,  simply 
an  intimation  to  the  Emperor  of  Russia  that  the  Great 
Powers  would  impose  and  enforce  the  neutrality  of  the 
Black  Sea.  It  was  an  announcement  that  if  the  flag  of 
Russia  dared  to  show  itself  on  that  sea,  which  washed  Rus- 
sia's southern  shores,  the  war-ships  of  two  far  foreign 
States,  taking  possession  of  those  waters,  would  pull  it 
down,  or  compel  those  who  bore  it  to  fly  ignominiously 
into  port.     This  was  in  fact  war. 


S48  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Of  course  Lord  Palmerston  knew  this.  Because  it 
meant  war,  he  accepted  it  and  returned  to  his  place,  well 
pleased  with  the  way  in  which  things  were  going.  From 
his  point  of  view  he  was  perfectly  right.  He  had  been 
consistent  all  through.  He  believed  from  the  first  that  the 
pretensions  of  Russia  would  have  to  be  put  down  by  force 
of  arms,  and  could  not  be  put  down  in  any  other  way;  he 
believed  that  the  danger  to  England  from  the  aggrandize- 
ment of  Russia  was  a  capital  danger  calling  for  any  extent 
of  national  sacrifice  to  avert  it.  He  believed  that  a  war 
with  Russia  was  inevitable,  and  he  preferred  taking  it 
sooner  to  taking  it  later.  He  believed  that  an  alliance 
with  the  Emperor  of  the  French  was  desirable,  and  a  v/ar 
with  Russia  would  be  the  best  means  of  making  this  effec- 
tive. Lord  Palmerston,  therefore,  was  determined  not  to 
remain  in  the  cabinet  unless  some  strenuous  measures 
were  taken,  and  now,  as  on  a  memorable  former  occasion, 
he  understood  better  than  any  one  else  the  prevailing 
temper  of  the  English  people. 

When  the  resolution  of  the  Western  cabinets  was  com- 
municated to  the  Emperor  of  Russia  he  withdrew  his  rep- 
resentatives from  London  and  Paris.  On  February  21st, 
1854,  the  diplomatic  relations  between  Russia  and  the  two 
allied  Powers  were  brought  to  a  stop.  Six  weeks  before 
this  the  English  and  French  fleets  had  entered  the  Black 
Sea.  The  interval  was  filled  up  with  renewed  efforts  to 
bring  about  a  peaceful  arrangement,  which  were  conducted 
with  as  much  gravity  as  if  any  one  believed  in  the  pos- 
sibility of  their  success.  The  Emperor  of  the  French, 
who  always  loved  letter-writing,  and  delighted  in  what 
Cobden  once  happily  called  the  "monumental  style," 
wrote  to  the  Russian  Emperor  appealing  to  him,  profess- 
edly in  the  interests  of  peace,  to  allow  an  armistice  to  be 
signed,  to  let  the  belligerent  forces  on  both  sides  retire 
from  the  places  to  which  motives  of  war  had  led  them, 
and  then  to  negotiate  a  convention  with  the  Sultan  which 
might  be  submitted  to  a  conference  of  the  four  Powers. 


IVberc  Was  Lord  Palmerston?  549 

If  Russia  would  not  do  this,  then  Louis  Napoleon,  under- 
taking to  speak  in  the  name  of  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain 
as  well  as  of  himself,  intimated  that  France  and  England 
would  be  compelled  to  leave  to  the  chances  of  war  what 
might  now  be  decided  by  reason  and  justice.  The  Em- 
peror Nicholas  replied  that  he  had  claimed  nothing  but 
what  was  confirmed  by  treaties;  that  his  conditions  were 
perfectly  well  known;  that  he  was  still  willing  to  treat  on 
these  conditions;  but  if  Russia  were  driven  to  arms,  then 
he  quietly  observed  that  he  had  no  doubt  she  could  hold 
her  own  as  well  in  1854  as  she  had  done  in  181 2.  That 
year,  181 2,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  was  the  year  of 
the  burning  of  Moscow  and  the  disastrous  retreat  of  the 
French.  We  can  easily  understand  what  faith  in  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  peaceful  arrangement  the  Russian  Emperor 
must  have  had  when  he  made  the  allusion,  and  the  French 
Emperor  must  have  had  when  it  met  his  eye.  Of  course 
if  Louis  Napoleon  had  had  the  faintest  belief  in  any  good 
result  to  come  of  his  letter,  he  would  never  have  closed  it 
with  the  threat  which  provoked  the  Russian  sovereign 
into  his  insufferable  rejoinder.  The  correspondence 
might  remind  one  of  that  which  is  said  to  have  passed 
between  two  Irish  chieftains.  "Pay  me  my  tribute," 
wrote  the  one,  "or  else!"  "I  owe  you  no  tribute,"  re- 
plied the  other,  "  and  if " 

England's  ultimatum  to  Russia  was  despatched  on  Feb- 
ruary 27th,  1854.  It  was  conveyed  in  a  letter  from  Lord 
Clarendon  to  Count  Nesselrode.  It  declared  that  the 
British  Government  had  exhausted  all  the  efforts  of  nego- 
tiation, and  was  compelled  to  announce  that  "if  Russia 
should  decline  to  restrict  within  purely  diplomatic  limits 
the  discussion  in  which  she  has  for  some  time  past  been 
engaged  with  the  Sublime  Porte,  and  does  not,  by  return 
of  the  messenger  who  is  the  bearer  of  my  present  letter, 
announce  h&r  intention  of  causing  the  Russian  troops 
under  Prince  Gortschakofif  to  commence  their  march  with 
a  view  to  recross  the  Pruth,  so  that  the  provinces  of  Mol- 


550  A  History  of  Our  Oven  Times. 

davia  and  Wallachia  shall  be  completely  evacuated  on 
April  30th  next,  the  British  Government  must  consider 
the  refusal  or  the  silence  of  the  cabinet  of  St.  Petersburg 
as  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  war,  and  will  take  its 
measures  accordingly. "  It  is  not,  perhaps,  very  profitable 
work  for  the  historian  to  criticise  the  mere  terms  of  a 
document  announcing  a  course  of  action  which  long  before 
its  issue  had  become  inevitable.  But  it  is  worth  while 
remarking,  perhaps,  that  it  would  have  been  better  and 
more  dignified  to  confine  the  letter  to  the  simple  demand 
for  the  evacuation  of  the  Danubian  provinces.  To  ask 
Russia  to  promise  that  her  controversy  with  the  Porte 
should  be  thenceforward  restricted  within  purely  diplo- 
matic limits  was  to  make  a  demand  with  which  no  Great 
Power  would,  or  indeed  could,  imdertake  to  comply.  A 
member  of  the  Peace  Society  itself  might  well  hesitate  to 
give  a  promise  that  a  dispute  in  which  he  was  engaged 
should  be  forever  confined  within  purely  diplomatic  limits. 
In  any  case,  it  was  certain  that  Russia  would  not  now 
make  any  concessions  tending  toward  peace.  The  mes- 
senger who  was  the  bearer  of  the  letter  was  ordered  not  to 
wait  more  than  six  days  for  an  answer.  On  the  fifth  day 
the  messenger  was  informed  byword  of  mouth  from  Count 
Nesselrode  that  the  Emperor  did  not  think  it  becoming  in 
him  to  give  any  reply  to  the  letter.  The  die  was  cast. 
Rather,  truly,  the  fact  was  recorded  that  the  die  had  been 
cast.  A  few  days  after  a  crowd  assembled  in  front  of  the 
Royal  Exchange  to  watch  the  performance  of  a  ceremonial 
that  had  been  little  known  to  the  living  generation.  The 
Sergeant-at-arms,  accompanied  by  some  of  the  officials  of 
the  City,  read  from  the  steps  of  the  Royal  Exchange  her 
Majesty's  declaration  of  war  against  Russia. 

The  causes  of  the  declaration  of  war  were  set  forth  in  an 
official  statement  published  in  the  London  Gazette.  This 
document  is  an  interesting  and  a  valuable  State-paper.  It 
recites  with  clearness  and  deliberation  the  successive  steps 
by  which  the  allied  Powers  had  been  led  to  the  necessity 


Where  Was  Lord  Palmer ston?  551 

of  an  armed  intervention  in  the  controversy  between 
Turkey  and  Russia.  It  described,  in  the  first  place,  the 
complaint  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia  against  the  Sultan 
with  reference  to  the  claims  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Churches,  and  the  arrangement  promoted  satisfactorily  by 
her  Majesty's  ambassador  at  Constantinople  for  rendering 
justice  to  the  claim,  "  an  arrangement  to  which  no  excep- 
tion was  taken  by  the  Russian  Government."  Then  came 
the  sudden  unmasking  of  the  other  and  quite  different 
claims  of  Prince  Mentschikoff,  "  the  nature  of  which,  in 
the  first  instance,  he  endeavored,  as  far  as  possible,  to 
conceal  from  her  Majesty's  ambassador."  These  claims, 
"  thus  studiously  concealed,"  affected  not  merely,  or  at  all, 
the  privileges  of  the  Greek  Church  at  Jerusalem,  "  but  the 
position  of  many  millions  of  Turkish  subjects  in  their  re- 
lations to  their  sovereign  the  Sultan."  The  declaration 
recalled  the  various  attempts  that  were  made  by  the 
Queen's  Government  in  conjunction  with  the  Governments 
of  France,  Austria,  and  Prussia,  to  meet  any  just  demands 
of  the  Russian  Emperor  without  affecting  the  dignity  and 
independence  of  the  Sultan;  and  showed  that  if  the  object 
of  Russia  had  been  solely  to  secure  their  proper  privileges 
and  immunities  for  the  Christian  populations  of  the  Otto- 
man empire,  the  offers  that  were  made  could  not  have 
failed  to  meet  that  object.  Her  Majesty's  Government, 
therefore,  held  it  as  manifest  that  what  Russia  was  really 
seeking  was  not  the  happiness  of  the  Christian  communi- 
ties of  Turkey,  but  the  right  to  interfere  in  the  ordinary 
relations  between  Turkish  subjects  and  their  sovereign. 
The  Sultan  refused  to  consent  to  this,  and  declared  war 
in  self-defence.  Yet  the  Government  of  her  Majesty  did 
not  renounce  all  hope  of  restoring  peace  between  the  con- 
tending parties  until  advice  and  remonstrance  proving 
wholly  in  vain,  and  Russia  continuing  to  extend  her  mili- 
tary preparations,  her  Majesty  felt  called  upon,  "b)''  re- 
gard for  an  ally,  the  integrity  and  independence  of  whose 
empire  have  been  recognized  as  essential  to  the  peace  of 


552  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Europe ;  by  the  sympathies  of  her  people  with  right  against 
wrong;  by  a  desire  to  avert  from  her  dominions  most  in- 
jurious consequences,  and  to  save  Europe  from  the  pre- 
ponderance of  a  Power  which  has  violated  the  faith  of 
treaties  and  defies  the  opinion  of  the  civilized  world,  to 
take  up  arms,  in  conjunction  with  the  Emperor  of  the 
French,  for  the  defence  of  the  Sultan." 

Some  passages  of  this  declaration  have  invited  criticism 
from  English  historians.  It  opens,  for  example,  with  a 
statement  of  the  fact  that  the  efforts  for  an  arrangement 
were  made  by  her  Majesty  in  conjunction  with  France, 
Austria,  and  Prussia.  It  speaks  of  this  concert  of  the  four 
Powers  down  almost  to  the  very  close ;  and  then  it  sud- 
denly breaks  off,  and  announces  that  in  consequence  of  all 
that  has  happened  her  Majesty  has  felt  compelled  to  take 
up  arms  "  in  conjunction  with  the  Emperor  of  the  French. " 
What  strange  diplomatic  mismanagement,  it  was  asked, 
has  led  to  this  singular  ?2on  sequitur?  Why,  after  having 
carried  on  the  negotiations  through  all  their  various  stages 
with  three  other  Great  Powers,  all  of  them  supposed  to  be 
equally  interested  in  a  settlement  of  the  question,  is  Eng- 
land at  the  last  moment  compelled  to  take  up  arms  with 
only  one  of  those  Powers  as  an  ally? 

The  principal  reason  for  the  separation  of  the  two  West- 
ern Powers  of  Europe  from  the  other  great  States  was 
found  in  the  condition  of  Prussia.  Prussia  was  then  greatly 
under  the  influence  of  the  Russian  court.  The  Prussian 
sovereign  was  related  to  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  and  his 
kingdom  was  almost  overshadowed  by  Russian  influence. 
Prussia  had  come  to  occupy  a  lower  position  in  Europe 
than  she  had  ever  before  held  during  her  existence  as  a 
kingdom.  It  seemed  almost  marvellous  how  by  any  pro- 
cess the  country  of  the  Great  Frederick  could  have  sunk 
to  such  a  condition  of  insignificance.  She  had  been  com- 
pelled to  stoop  to  Austria  after  the  events  of  1848.  The 
King  of  Prussia,  tampering  with  the  offers  of  the  strong 
national  party  who  desired  to  make  him  Emperor  of  Ger- 


Where  Was  Lord  Palvierston^  553 

many,  now  moving  forward  and  now  drawing  back,  "let- 
ting I  dare  not  wait  upon  I  would,"  was  suddenly  pulled 
Tip  by  Austria.  The  famous  arrangement  called  afterward 
"the  humiliation  of  Olmlitz,"  and  so  completely  revenged 
at  Sadowa,  compelled  him  to  drop  all  his  triflings  with ; 
nationalism  and  repudiate  his  former  instigators.  The 
King  of  Prussia  was  a  highly  cultured,  amiable,  literary 
man.  He  loved  letters  and  arts  in  a  sort  of  dilettante  way; 
he  had  good  impulses  and  a  weak  nature ;  he  was  a  dreamer ; 
a  sort  of  philosopher  manqud.  He  was  unable  to  make  up 
his  mind  to  any  momentous  decision  until  the  time  for 
rendering  it  effective  had  gone  by.  A  man  naturally 
truthful,  he  was  often  led  by  very  weakness  into  acts  that 
seemed  irreconcilable  with  his  previous  promises  and  en- 
gagements. He  could  say  witty  and  sarcastic  things,  and 
when  political  affairs  went  wrong  with  him  he  could  con- 
sole himself  with  one  or  two  sharp  sayings  only  heard  of 
by  those  immediately  around  him  ;  and  then  the  world 
might  go  its  way  for  him.  He  was,  like  Rob  Roy,  "ower 
good  for  banning  and  ower  bad  for  blessing. "  Like  our 
own  Charles  H.,  he  never  said  a  foolish  thing  and  never 
did  a  wise  one.  He  ought  to  have  been  an  aesthetic  essay- 
ist, or  a  lecturer  on  art  and  moral  philosophy  to  young 
ladies;  and  an  unkind  destiny  had  made  him  the  king  of 
a  state  specially  embarrassed  in  a  most  troublous  time. 
So  unkindly  was  popular  rumor  as  well  as  fate  to  him, 
that  he  got  the  credit  in  foreign  countries  of  being  a  stupid 
sensualist  when  he  was  really  a  man  of  respectable  habits 
and  refined  nature;  and  in  England  at  least  the  nickname 
"  King  Clicquot"  was  long  the  brand  by  which  the  popu- 
lar and  most  mistaken  impression  of  his  character  was 
signified. 

The  King  of  Prussia  was  the  elder  brother  of  the  pres- 
ent German  Emperor.  Had  the  latter  been  then  on  the 
throne  he  would  probably  have  taken  some  timely  and  en- 
ergetic decision  with  regard  to  the  national  duty  of  Prussia 
during  the  impending  crisis.     Right  or  wrong,  he  would 


554  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

doubtless  have  contrived  to  see  his  way  and  make  up  his 
mind  at  an  early  stage  of  the  European  movement.  It  is 
by  no  means  to  be  assumed  that  he  would  have  taken  the 
course  most  satisfactory  to  England  and  France ;  but  it  is 
likely  that  his  action  might  have  prevented  the  war,  either 
by  rendering  the  allied  Powers  far  too  strong  to  be  resisted 
by  Russia,  or  by  adding  to  Russia  an  influence  which 
would  have  rendered  the  game  of  war  too  formidable  to 
suit  the  calculations  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French.  The 
actual  King  of  Prussia,  however,  went  so  far  with  the 
allies  as  to  lead  them  for  a  while  to  believe  that  he  was  go- 
ing all  the  way ;  but  at  the  last  moment  he  broke  off,  de- 
clared that  the  interests  of  Prussia  did  not  require  or  allow 
him  to  engage  in  a  war,  and  left  France  and  England  to 
walk  their  own  road.  Austria  could  not  venture  upon 
such  a  war  without  the  co-operation  of  Prussia;  and,  in- 
deed, the  course  which  the  campaign  took  seemed  likely 
to  give  both  Austria  and  Prussia  a  good  excuse  for  assum- 
ing that  their  interests  were  not  closely  engaged  in  the 
struggle.  Austria  would  most  certainly  have  gone  to  war 
if  the  Emperor  of  Russia  had  kept  up  the  occupation  of 
the  Danubian  Principalities;  and  for  that  purpose  her 
territorial  situation  made  her  irresistible.  But  when  the 
seat  of  war  was  transferred  to  the  Black  Sea,  and  when 
after  a  while  the  Czar  withdrew  his  troops  from  the  Prin- 
cipalities, and  Austria  occupied  them  by  virtue  of  a  con- 
vention with  the  Sultan,  her  direct  interest  in  the  struggle 
was  reduced  almost  to  nothing.  Austria  and  Prussia  were, 
in  fact,  solicited  by  both  sides  of  the  dispute,  and  at  one 
time  it  was  even  thought  possible  that  Prussia  might  give 
her  aid  to  Russia.  This,  however,  she  refrained  from 
doing;  Austria  and  Prussia  made  an  arrangement  between 
themselves  for  mutual  defence  in  case  the  progress  of  the 
war  should  directly  imperil  the  interests  of  either;  and 
England  and  France  undertook  in  alliance  the  task  of 
chastising  the  presumption  and  restraining  the  ambitious 
designs  of  Russia.      Mr.    Kinglake  finds  much  fault  with 


Where  IVas  Lord  Palmer ston? 


>55 


the  policy  of  the  English  Government,  on  which  he  lays 
all  the  blame  of  the  severance  of  interests  between  the  two 
"Western  States  and  the  other  two  Great  Powers.  But  we 
confess  that  we  do  not  see  how  any  course  within  the  reach 
of  England  could  have  secured  just  then  the  thorough  al- 
liance of  Prussia;  and  without  such  an  alliance  it  would 
have  been  vain  to  expect  that  Austria  would  throw  herself 
unreservedly  into  the  policy  of  the  Western  Powers.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  the  controversy  between  Russia 
and  the  West  really  involved  several  distinct  questions, 
in  some  of  which  Prussia  had  absolutely  no  direct  interest, 
and  Austria  very  little.  Let  us  set  out  some  of  these 
questions  separately.  There  was  the  Russian  occupation 
of  the  Principalities.  In  this  Austria  frankly  acknowl- 
edged her  capital  interest.  Its  direct  bearing  was  on  her 
more  than  any  other  Power.  It  concerned  Prussia  as  it 
did  England  and  France,  inasmuch  as  it  was  an  evidence 
of  an  aggressive  purpose  which  might  very  seriously 
threaten  the  general  stability  of  the  institutions  of  Eu- 
rope; but  Prussia  had  no  closer  interest  in  it.  Austria 
was  the  State  most  affected  by  it,  and  Austria  was  the 
State  which  could  with  most  effect  operate  against  it,  and 
was  always  willing  and  resolute  if  needs  were  to  do  so. 
Then  there  was  the  question  of  Russia's  claim  to  exercise 
a  protectorate  over  the  Christian  populations  of  Turkey. 
This  concerned  England  and  France  in  one  sense  as  part 
of  the  general  pretensions  of  Russia,  and  concerned  each 
of  them  separately  in  another  sense.  To  France  it  told  of 
a  rivalry  with  the  right  she  claimed  to  look  after  the  inter- 
ests of  the  Latin  Church;  to  England  it  spoke  of  a  purpose 
to  obtain  hold  over  populations  nominally  subject  to  the 
Sultan  which  might  in  time  make  Russia  virtual  master  of 
the  approaches  to  our  Eastern  possessions.  Austria,  too, 
had  a  direct  interest  in  repelling  these  pretensions  of  Rus- 
sia, for  some  of  the  populations  they  referred  to  were  on 
her  very  frontier.  But  Prussia  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
had  any  direct  national  interest  in  that  question  at  all. 


556  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Then  there  came,  distinct  from  all  these,  the  question  of 
the  Straits  of  the  Dardanelles  and  the  Bosphorus. 

This  question  of  the  Straits,  which  has  so  much  to  do 
with  the  whole  European  aspect  of  the  war,  is  not  to  be 
understood  except  by  those  who  bear  the  conformation  of 
the  map  of  Europe  constantly  in  their  minds.  The  only 
outlet  of  Russia  on  the  southern  side  is  the  Black  Sea. 
The  Black  Sea  is,  save  for  one  little  outlet  at  its  south- 
western extremity,  a  huge  land-locked  lake.  That  little 
outlet  is  the  narrow  channel  called  the  Bosphorus.  Rus- 
sia and  Turkey,  between  them,  surround  the  whole  of  the 
Black  Sea  with  their  territory.  Russia  has  the  north  and 
some  of  the  eastern  shore ;  Turkey  has  all  the  southern, 
the  Asia  Minor  shore,  and  nearly  all  the  western  shore. 
Close  the  Straits  of  the  Bosphorus  and  Russia  would  be 
literally  locked  into  the  Black  Sea.  The  Bosphorus  is  a 
narrow  channel,  as  has  been  said;  it  is  some  seventeen 
miles  in  length,  and  in  some  places  it  is  hardly  more  than 
half  a  mile  in  breadth.  But  it  is  very  deep  all  through, 
so  that  ships  of  war  can  float  close  up  to  its  very  shores  on 
either  side.  This  channel  in  its  course  passes  between 
the  city  of  Constantinople  and  its  Asiatic  suburb  of  Scu- 
tari. The  Bosphorus  then  opens  into  the  little  Sea  of 
Marmora ;  and  out  of  the  Sea  of  Marmora  the  way  west- 
ward is  through  the  channel  of  the  Dardanelles.  The 
Dardanelles  form  the  only  passage  into  the  Archipelago, 
and  thence  into  the  Mediterranean.  The  channel  of  the 
Dardanelles  is,  like  the  Bosphorus,  very  narrow  and  very 
deep,  but  it  pursues  its  course  for  some  forty  miles.  Any 
one  who  holds  a  map  in  his  hand  will  see  at  once  how 
Turkey  and  Russia  alike  are  affected  by  the  existence  of  the . 
Straits  on  either  extremity  of  the  Sea  of  Marmora.  Close 
up  these  Straits  against  vessels  of  war,  and  the  capital  of 
the  Sultan  is  absolutely  unassailable  from  the  sea.  Close 
them,  on  the  other  hand,  and  the  Russian  fleet  in  the  Black 
Sea  is  absolutely  cut  off  from  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Western  world.     But  then  it  has  to  be  remembered  that 


Where  Was  Lord  Palmer ston?  537 

the  same  act  of  closing  would  secure  the  Russian  ports  and 
shores  on  the  Black  Sea  from  the  approach  of  any  of  the 
great  navies  of  the  West.  The  Dardanelles  and  the  Bos- 
phorus  being  alike  such  narrow  channels,  and  being  edged 
alike  by  Turkish  territory,  were  not  regarded  as  high  seas. 
The  Sultans  always  claimed  the  right  to  exclude  foreign 
ships  of  war  from  both  the  Straits.  The  Treaty  of  1841 
secured  this  right  to  Turkey  by  the  agreement  of  the  five 
Great  Powers  of  Europe.  The  treaty  acknowledged  that 
the  Porte  had  the  right  to  shut  the  Straits  against  the 
armed  navies  of  any  foreign  Power ;  and  the  Sultan,  for 
his  part,  engaged  not  to  allow  any  such  navy  to  enter 
either  of  the  Straits  in  time  of  peace.  The  closing  of  the 
Straits  had  been  the  subject  of  a  perfect  succession  of 
treaties.  The  Treaty  of  1809  between  Great  Britain  and 
Turkey  confirmed  by  engagement  "  the  ancient  rule  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire"  forbidding  vessels  of  war  at  all  times 
to  enter  the  *'  Canal  of  Constantinople. "  The  Treaty  of 
Unkiar-Skelessi  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  arising  out 
of  Russia's  co-operation  with  the  Porte  to  put  down  the 
rebellious  movement  of  Mohammed  Ali,  the  Egyptian 
vassal  of  the  latter,  contained  a  secret  clause  binding  the 
Porte  to  close  "the  Dardanelles"  against  all  war  vessels 
whatever,  thus  shutting  Russia's  enemies  out  of  the  Black 
Sea,  but  leaving  Russia  free  to  pass  the  Bosphorus,  so  far, 
at  least,  as  that  treaty  engagement  was  concerned.  Later, 
when  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe  combined  to  put  down 
the  attempts  of  Egypt,  the  Treaty  of  July  13th,  1841,  made 
in  London,  engaged  that  in  time  of  peace  no  foreign  ships 
of  war  should  be  admitted  into  the  Straits  of  the  Bosphorus 
and  the  Dardanelles.  This  treaty  was  but  a  renewal  of  a 
convention  made  the  year  before,  while  France  was  still 
sulking  away  from  the  European  concert,  and  did  nothing 
more  than  record  her  return  to  it. 

As  matters  stood  then,  the  Sultan  was  not  only  permitted 
but  was  bound  to  close  the  Straits  in  times  of  peace,  and 
no  navy  might  enter  them  without  his  consent  even  in 


538  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

times  of  war.  But  in  times  of  war  he  might,  of  course, 
give  the  permission,  and  invite  the  presence  and  co-oper- 
ation of  the  armed  vessels  of  a  foreign  Power  in  the  Sea 
of  Marmora.  By  this  treaty  the  Black  Sea  fleet  of  Russia 
became  literally  a  Black  Sea  fleet,  and  could  no  more  reach 
the  Mediterranean  and  Western  Europe  than  a  boat  on  the 
Lake  of  Lucerne  could  do.  Naturally  Russia  chafed  at 
this;  but  at  the  same  time  she  was  not  willing  to  see  the 
restriction  withdrawn  in  favor  of  an  arrangement  that 
would  leave  the  Straits,  and  consequently  the  Black  Sea, 
open  to  the  navies  of  France  and  England.  Her  supremacy 
in  Eastern  Europe  would  count  for  little,  her  power  of  co- 
ercing Turkey  would  be  sadly  diminished,  if  the  war-flag 
of  England,  for  example,  were  to  float  side  by  side  with 
her  own  in  front  of  Constantinople  or  in  the  Euxine. 
Therefore  it  was  natural  that  the  ambition  of  Russia  should 
tend  toward  the  ultimate  possession  of  Constantinople  and 
the  Straits  for  herself;  but  as  this  was  an  ambition  the 
fulfilment  of  which  seemed  far  off  and  beset  with  vast 
dangers,  her  object,  meanwhile,  was  to  gain  as  much  in- 
fluence and  ascendency  as  possible  over  the  Ottoman  Gov- 
ernment ;  to  make  it  practically  the  vassal  of  Russia,  and, 
in  any  case,  to  prevent  any  other  Great  Power  from  ob- 
taining the  influence  and  ascendency  which  she  coveted 
for  herself.  Now  the  tendency  of  this  ambition  and  of  all 
the  intermediate  claims  and  disputes  with  regard  to  the 
opening  or  closing  of  the  Straits  was  of  importance  to 
Europe  generally  as  a  part  of  Russian  aggrandizement; 
but  of  the  Great  Powers  they  concerned  England  most; 
France  as  a  Mediterranean  and  a  naval  power;  Austria 
only  in  a  third  and  remoter  degree,  and  Prussia  at  the 
time  of  King  Frederick  William  least  of  all.  It  is  not 
surprising,  therefore,  that  the  two  Western  Powers  were 
not  able  to  carry  their  accord  with  Prussia  to  the  extent  of 
an  alliance  in  war  against  Russia;  and  it  was  hardly  pos- 
sible then  for  Austria  to  go  on  if  Prussia  insisted  on  draw- 
ing back.     Thus  it  came  that  at  a  certain  point  of  th§  n<?' 


Where  Was  Lord  Patmerston  ?  559 

gotiatlons  Pi-ussiafell  off  absolutely,  or  nearly  so;  Austria 
undertook  but  a  conditional  co-operation,  of  which,  as  it 
happened,  the  conditions  did  not  arise;  and  the  Queen 
of  England  announced  that  she  had  taken  up  arms 
against  Russia  "  in  conjunction  with  the  Emperor  of  the 
French." 

To  the  great  majority  of  the  English  people  this  war 
was  popular.  It  was  popular  partly  because  of  the  natural 
and  inevitable  reaction  against  the  doctrines  of  peace 
and  mere  trading  prosperity  which  had  been  preached 
somewhat  too  pertinaciously  for  some  time  before.  But 
it  was  popular,  too,  because  of  its  novelty.  It  was  like  a 
return  to  the  youth  of  the  world  when  England  found  her- 
self once  more  preparing  for  the  field.  It  was  like  the 
pouring  of  new  blood  into  old  veins.  The  public  had 
grown  impatient  of  the  common  saying  of  foreign  capitals 
that  England  had  joined  the  Peace  Society,  and  would 
never  be  seen  in  battle  any  more.  Mr.  Kinglake  is  right 
when  he  says  that  the  doctrines  of  the  Peace  Society  had 
never  taken  any  hold  of  the  higher  classes  in  this  country 
at  all.  They  had  never,  we  may  venture  to  add,  taken 
any  real  hold  of  the  humbler  classes;  of  the  working-men, 
for  example.  The  well  educated,  thoughtful  middle-class, 
who  knew  how  much  of  worldly  happiness  depends  on  a 
regular  income,  moderate  taxation,  and  a  comfortable 
home,  supplied  most  of  the  advocates  of  "  peace,"  as  it  was 
scornfully  said,  "at  any  price."  Let  us  say,  in  justice  to 
a  very  noble  and  very  futile  doctrine,  that  there  were  na 
persons  in  England  who  advocated  peace  "at  any  price," 
in  the  ignominious  sense  which  hostile  critics  pressed  upon 
the  words.  There  was  a  small,  a  serious,  and  a  very  re- 
spectable body  of  persons  who,  out  of  the  purest  motives 
of  conscience,  held  that  all  war  was  criminal  and  offensive 
to  the  Deity.  They  were  for  peace  at  any  price,  exactly 
as  they  were  for  truth  at  any  price,  or  conscience  at  any 
Y>Tice.  They  were  opposed  to  war  as  they  were  to  false- 
hood or  to  impiety.     It  seemed  as  natural  to  them  that  a 


560  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

man  should  die  unresisting  rather  than  resist  and  kill,  as  it 
does  to  most  persons  who  profess  any  sentiment  of  religion 
or  even  of  honor,  that  a  man  should  die  rather  than  abjure 
the  faith  he  believes  in,  or  tell  a  lie.  It  is  assumed,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  any  Englishman  worthy  of  the  name 
would  have  died  by  any  torture  tyranny  could  put  on  him 
rather  than  perform  the  old  ceremony  of  trampling  on  the 
crucifix,  which  certain  heathen  states  were  said  to  have 
sometimes  insisted  on  as  the  price  of  a  captive's  freedom. 
To  the  believers  in  the  peace  doctrine  the  act  of  war  was 
a  trampling  on  the  crucifix,  which  brought  with  it  evil 
consequences  unspeakably  worse  than  the  mere  perform- 
ance of  a  profane  ceremonial.  To  declare  that  they  would 
rather  suffer  any  earthly  penalty  of  defeat  or  national  ser- 
vitude than  take  part  in  a  war,  was  only  consistent  with 
the  great  creed  of  their  lives.  It  ought  not  to  have  been 
held  as  any  reproach  to  them.  Even  those  who,  like  this 
writer,  have  no  personal  sympathy  with  such  a  belief,  and 
who  hold  that  a  war  in  a  just  cause  is  an  honor  to  a  na- 
tion, may  still  recognize  the  purity  and  nobleness  of  the 
principle  which  inspired  the  votaries  of  peace  and  do  honor 
to  it.  But  these  men  were,  in  any  case,  not  many  at  the 
time  when  the  Crimean  War  broke  out.  They  had  very 
little  influence  on  the  course  of  the  national  policy.  They 
were  assailed  with  a  flippant  and  a  somewhat  ignoble  ridi- 
cule. The  worst  reproach  that  could  be  given  to  men  like 
Mr.  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  was  to  accuse  them  of  being 
members  of  the  Peace  Society.  It  does  not  appear  that 
either  man  was  a  member  of  the  actual  organization.  Mr. 
Bright's  religious  creed  made  him  necessarily  a  votary  of 
peace;  Mr.  Cobden  had  attended  meetings  called  with  the 
futile  purpose  of  establishing  peace  among  nations  by  the 
operation  of  good  feeling  and  of  common-sense.  But  for 
a  considerable  time  the  temper  of  the  English  people  was 
such  as  to  render  any  talk  about  peace  not  only  unprofita- 
ble but  perilous  to  the  very  cause  of  peace  itself.  Some 
of  the  leading  members  of  the  Peace  Society  did  actually 


Where  Was  Lord  Palmer ston  ?  56 1 

get  up  a  deputation  to  the  Emperor  Nicholas  to  appeal  to 
his  better  feelings ;  and  of  course  they  were  charmed  by 
the  manners  of  the  Emperor,  who  made  it  his  business  to 
be  in  a  very  gracious  humor,  and  spoke  them  fair,  and 
introduced  them  in  the  most  unceremonious  way  to  his 
wife.  Such  a  visit  counted  for  nothing  in  Russia,  and  at 
home  it  only  tended  to  make  people  angry  and  impatient, 
and  to  put  the  cause  of  peace  in  greater  jeopardy  than 
ever.  Viewed  as  a  practical  influence,  the  peace  doctrine 
as  completely  broke  down  as  a  general  resolution  against 
the  making  of  money  might  have  done  during  the  time  of 
the  mania  for  speculation  in  railway  shares.  But  it  did 
not  merely  break  down  of  itself.  It  carried  some  great 
influences  down  with  it  for  the  time — influences  that  were 
not  a  part  of  itself.  The  eloquence  that  had  coerced  the 
intellect  and  reasoning  power  of  Peel  into  a  complete  sur- 
render to  the  doctrines  of  Free-trade,  the  eloquence  that 
had  aroused  the  populations  of  all  the  cities  of  England 
and  had  conquered  the  House  of  Commons,  was  destined 
now  to  call  aloud  to  solitude.  Mr.  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright 
addressed  their  constituents  and  their  countrymen  in  vain. 
The  fact  that  they  were  believed  to  be  opposed  on  prin- 
ciple to  all  wars  put  them  out  of  court  in  public  estima- 
tion, as  Mr.  Kinglake  justly  observes,  when  they  went 
about  to  argue  against  this  particular  war. 

In  the  cabinet  itself  there  were  men  who  disliked  the 
idea  of  a  war  quite  as  much  as  they  did.  Lord  Aberdeen 
detested  war,  and  thought  it  so  absurd  a  way  of  settling 
national  disputes,  that  almost  until  the  first  cannon-shot 
had  been  fired  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  believe  in  the 
possibility  of  the  intelligent  English  people  being  drawn 
into  it.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  a  conscientious  and  a  sensitive 
objection  to  war  in  general  as  a  brutal  and  an  unchristian 
occupation ;  although  his  feelings  would  not  have  carried 
him  so  far  away  as  to  prevent  his  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  war  might  often  be  just,  a  necessary,  and  a  glorious 
undertaking  on  the  part  of  a  civilized  nation.     The  diffi- 

VOL.  I. — 36 


562  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

culties  of  the  hour  were  considerably  enhanced  by  the  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  that  prevailed  in  the  cabinet. 

There  were  other  differences  there  as  well  as  those  that 
belonged  to  the  mere  abstract  question  of  the  glory  or  the 
guilt  of  war.  It  soon  became  clear  that  two  parties  of  the 
cabinet  looked  on  the  war  and  its  objects  with  different 
eyes  and  interests.  Lord  Palmerston  wanted  simply  to 
put  down  Russia  and  uphold  Turkey.  Others  were  spe- 
cially concerned  for  the  Christian  populations  of  Turkey 
and  their  better  government.  Lord  Palmerston  not  merely 
thought  that  the  interests  of  England  called  for  some  check 
to  the  aggressiveness  of  Russia;  he  liked  the  Turk  for 
himself;  he  had  faith  in  the  future  of  Turkey:  he  went 
so  far,  even,  as  to  proclaim  his  belief  in  the  endurance  of 
her  military  power.  Give  Turkey  single-handed  a  fair 
chance,  he  argued,  and  she  would  beat  Russia.  He  did 
not  believe  either  in  the  disaffection  of  the  Christian  pop- 
ulations or  in  the  stories  of  their  oppression.  He  regarded 
all  these  stories  as  part  of  the  plans  and  inventions  of 
Russia.  He  had  no  half  beliefs  in  the  matter  at  all.  The 
Christian  populations  and  their  grievances  he  regarded, 
in  plain  language,  as  mere  humbugs;  he  looked  upon  the 
Turk  as  a  very  fine  fellow  whom  all  chivalric  minds  ought 
to  respect.  He  believed  all  that  was  said  upon  the  one 
side  and  nothing  upon  the  other;  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  this  long  ago,  and  no  arguments  or  facts  could 
now  shake  his  convictions.  A  belief  of  this  kind  may 
have  been  very  unphilosophic.  It  was  undoubtedly,  in 
many  respects,  the  birth  of  mere  prejudice,  independent 
of  fact  or  reasoning.  But  the  temper  born  of  such  a  belief 
is  exactly  that  which  should  have  the  making  of  a  war 
entrusted  to  it.  Lord  Palmerston  saw  his  way  straight  be- 
fore him.  The  brave  Turk  had  to  be  supported ;  the 
wicked  Russian  had  to  be  put  down.  On  one  side  there 
were  Lord  Aberdeen,  who  did  not  believe  any  one  seri- 
ously meant  to  be  so  barbarous  as  to  go  to  war,  and  Mr. 
Gladstone,  who  shrank  from  war  in  general,  and  was  not 


Where  Was  Lord  Palmersfon?  563 

yet  quite  certain  whether  England  had  any  right  to  under-  ( 

take  this  war;  the  two  being,  furthermore,  concerned  far  \ 

more  for  the  welfare  of  Turkey's  Christian  subjects  than  ' 
for  the  stability  of  Turkey  or  the  humiliation  of  Russia. 

On  the  other  side  was  Lord  Palmerston,   gay,   resolute,  l 

clear  as  to  his  own  purpose,  convinced  to  the  heart's  core  \ 

of  everything  which  just  then  it  was  for  the  advantage  of  i 

his  cause  to  believe.     It  was  impossible  to  doubt  on  which  \ 

side  were  to  be  found  the  materials  for  the  successful  con-  ' 
duct  of  the  enterprise  which  was  now  so  popular  with  the 
country.     The  most  conscientious  men  might  differ  about 

the  prudence  or  the  moral  propriety  of  the  war;  but  to  ' 

those  who  once  accepted  its  necessity  and  wished  our  side  | 

to  win,  there  could  be  no  possible  doubt,  even  for  members  \ 

of  the  Peace  Society,  as  to  the  importance  of  having  Lord  ' 
Palmerston  either  at  the  head  of  affairs  or  in  charge  of  the 

war  itself.     The  moment  the  war  actually  broke  out  it  i 

became  evident  to  every  one  that  Palmerston's  interval  of  i 

comparative  inaction  and  obscurity  was  well-nigh  over.  j 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

THE    INVASION    OF    THE    CRIMEA, 

England,  then,  and  France  entered  the  war  as  allies. 
Lord  Raglan,  formerly  Lord  Fitzroy  vSomerset,  an  old 
pupil  of  the  Great  Duke  in  the  Peninsular  War,  and  who 
had  lost  his  right  arm  serving  under  Wellington  at  Water- 
loo, was  appointed  to  command  the  English  forces.  Mar- 
shal St.  Amaud,  a  bold,  brilliant  soldier  of  fortune,  was 
entrusted  by  the  Emperor  of  the  French  with  the  leader- 
ship of  the  soldiers  of  France.  The  allied  forces  went  out 
to  the  East  and  assembled  at  Varna,  on  the  Black  Sea 
shore,  from  which  they  were  to  make  their  descent  on  the 
Crimea.  The  war,  meantime,  had  gone  badly  for  the 
Emperor  of  Russia  in  his  attempt  to  crush  the  Turks. 
The  Tvirks  had  found  in  Omar  Pasha  a  commander  of 
remarkable  ability  and  energy;  and  they  had  in  one  or 
two  instances  received  the  unexpected  aid  and  counsel  of 
clever  and  successful  Englishmen.  A  singularly  brilliant 
episode  in  the  opening  part  of  the  war  was  the  defence  of 
the  earthworks  of  Silistria,  on  the  Bulgarian  bank  of  the 
Danube,  by  a  body  of  Turkish  troops  under  the  directions 
of  two  young  Englishmen — Captain  Butler,  of  the  Ceylon 
Rifles,  and  Lieutenant  Nasmyth,  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany's Service.  These  young  soldiers  had  voluntarily 
undertaken  the  danger  and  responsibility  of  the  defence. 
Butler  was  killed,  but  the  Russians  were  completely  foiled, 
and  had  to  raise  the  siege.  At  Giurgevo  and  other  places 
the  Russians  were  likewise  repulsed ;  and  the  invasion  of 
the  Danubian  provinces  was  already,  to  all  intents,  a 
failure. 

Mr.   Kinglake  and  other  writers  have  argued  that  but 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  565 

for  the  ambition  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French  and  the 
excited  temper  of  the  English  people  the  war  might  well 
have  ended  then  and  there.  The  Emperor  of  Russia  had 
found,  it  is  contended,  that  he  could  not  maintain  an  in- 
vasion of  European  Turkey ;  his  fleet  was  confined  to  its 
ports  in  the  Black  Sea,  and  there  was  nothing  for  him  but 
to  make  peace.  But  we  confess  we  do  not  see  with  what 
propriety  or  wisdom  the  allies,  having  entered  on  the 
enterprise  at  all,  could  have  abandoned  it  at  such  a 
moment,  and  allowed  the  Czar  to  escape  thus  merely 
scotched.  However  brilliant  and  gratifying  the  successes 
obtained  against  the  Russians,  they  were  but  a  series  of 
what  might  be  called  outpost  actions.  They  could  not  be 
supposed  to  have  tested  the  resources  of  Russia  or  weak- 
ened her  strength.  They  had  humbled  and  vexed  her  just 
enough  to  make  her  doubly  resentful,  and  no  more.  It 
seems  impossible  to  suppose  that  such  trivial  disasters 
could  have  affected  in  the  slightest  degree  the  historic 
march  of  Russian  ambition,  supposing  such  a  movement 
to  exist.  If  we  allow  the  purpose  with  which  England 
entered  the  war  to  be  just  and  reasonable,  then  we  think 
the  instinct  of  the  English  people  was  sound  and  true 
which  would  have  refused  to  allow  Russia  to  get  off  with 
one  or  two  trifling  checks,  and  to  nurse  her  wrath  and  keep 
her  vengeance  waiting  for  a  better  chance  some  other 
time.  The  allies  went  on.  They  sailed  from  Varna  for 
the  Crimea  nearly  three  months  after  the  raising  of  the 
siege  of  Silistria. 

There  is  much  discussion  as  to  the  original  author  of 
the  project  for  the  invasion  of  the  Crimea.  The  Emperor 
Napoleon  has  had  it  ascribed  to  him ;  so  has  Lord 
Palmerston;  so  has  the  Duke  of  Newcastle;  so,  according 
to  Mr.  Kinglake,  has  the  Tifnes  newspaper.  It  does  not 
much  concern  us  to  know  in  whom  the  idea  originated, 
but  it  is  of  some  importance  to  know  that  it  was  essentially 
a  civilian's  and  not  a  soldier's  idea.  It  took  possession 
almost  simultaneously,  so  far  as  we  can  observe,  of  the 


f)66  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

minds  of  several  statesmen,  and  it  had  a  sudden  fascina- 
tion for  the  public.  The  Emperor  Nicholas  had  raised 
and  sheltered  his  Black  Sea  fleet  at  Sebastopol.  That 
fleet  had  sallied  forth  from  Sebastopol  to  commit  what  was 
called  the  massacre  of  Sinope.  Sebastopol  was  the  great 
arsenal  of  Russia.  It  was  the  point  from  which  Turkey 
was  threatened ;  from  which,  it  was  universally  believed, 
the  embodied  ambition  of  Russia  was  one  day  to  make  its 
most  formidable  effort  of  aggression.  Within  the  fence 
of  its  vast  sea-forts  the  fleet  of  the  Black  Sea  lay  screened. 
From  the  moment  when  the  vessels  of  England  and  France 
entered  the  Euxine  the  Russian  fleet  had  withdrawn  be- 
hind the  curtain  of  these  defences,  and  was  seen  upon  the 
open  waves  no  more.  If,  therefore,  Sebastopol  could  be 
taken  or  destroyed,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  whole  material 
fabric,  put  together  at  such  cost  and  labor  for  the  execu- 
tion of  the  schemes  of  Russia,  would  be  shattered  at  a 
blow.  There  seemed  a  dramatic  justice  in  the  idea.  It 
could  not  fail  to  commend  itself  to  the  popular  mind. 

Mr.  Kinglake  has  given  the  world  an  amusing  picture 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  despatch  of  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle, ordering  the  invasion  of  the  Crimea — for  it  really 
amounted  to  an  order — was  read  to  his  colleagues  in  the 
cabinet.  It  was  a  despatch  of  the  utmost  importance ;  for 
the  terms  in  Avhich  it  pressed  the  project  on  Lord  Raglan 
really  rendered  it  almost  impossible  for  the  commander- 
in-chief  to  use  his  own  discretion.  It  ought  to  have  been 
considered  sentence  by  sentence,  word  by  word.  It  was 
read,  Mr.  Kinglake  affirms,  to  a  number  of  cabinet  minis- 
ters, most  of  whom  had  fallen  fast  asleep.  The  day  was 
warm,  he  says;  the  despatch  was  long;  the  reading  was 
somewhat  monotonous.  Most  of  those  who  tried  to  listen 
found  the  soporific  influence  irresistible.  As  Sam  Weller 
would  have  said,  poppies  were  nothing  to  it.  The  states- 
men fell  asleep;  and  there  was  no  alteration  made  in  the 
despatch.  All  this  is  very  amusing;  and  it  is,  we  believe, 
true  enough  that  at  the  particular  meeting  to  which  Mr. 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  567 

Kinglake  refers  there  was  a  good  deal  of  nodding  of  sleepy 
heads  and  closing  of  tired  eyelids.  But  it  is  not  fair  to 
say  that  these  slumbers  had  anything  to  do  with  the  sub- 
sequent events  of  the  war.  The  reading  of  the  despatch 
was  purely  a  piece  of  formality;  for  the  project  it  was  to 
recommend  had  been  discussed  very  fully  before,  and  the 
minds  of  most  members  of  the  cabinet  were  finally  made 
up.  The  28th  of  June,  1854,  was  the  day  of  the  slumber- 
ing cabinet.  But  Lord  Palmerston  had,  during  the  whole 
of  the  previous  fortnight  at  least,  been  urging  on  the  cab- 
inet, and  on  individual  members  of  it  separately,  the  Duke 
of  Newcastle  in  especial,  the  project  of  an  invasion  of  the 
Crimea  and  an  attempt  on  Sebastopol.  With  all  the 
energy  and  strenuousness  of  his  nature,  he  had  been  urging 
this  by  arguments  in  the  cabinet,  by  written  memoranda 
for  the  consideration  of  each  member  of  the  cabinet  sepa- 
rately, and  by  long,  earnest  letters  addressed  to  particular 
members  of  the  cabinet.  Many  of  these  documents,  of 
the  existence  of  which  Mr.  Kinglake  was  doubtless  not 
aware  when  he  set  down  his  vivacious  and  satirical  ac- 
count of  the  sleeping  cabinet,  have  since  been  published. 
The  plan  had  also  been  greatly  favored  and  much  urged 
by  the  Emperor  of  the  French  before  the  day  of  the  sleep 
of  the  statesmen;  indeed,  as  has  been  said  already,  he 
receives  from  many  persons  the  credit  of  having  origi- 
nated it.  The  plan,  therefore,  good  or  bad,  was  thoroughly 
known  to  the  cabinet,  and  had  been  argued  for  and  against 
over  and  over  again  before  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  read 
aloud  to  drowsy  ears  the  despatch  recommending  it  to  the 
commander-in-chief  of  the  British  forces  in  the  field.  The 
perusal  of  the  despatch  was  a  mere  form.  It  would,  in- 
deed, have  been  better  if  the  most  wearied  statesman  had 
contrived  to  pay  a  full  attention  to  it,  but  the  want  of 
such  respect  in  nowise  affected  the  policy  of  the  coun- 
try. It  is  a  pity  to  have  to  spoil  so  amusing  a  story  as 
Mr.  Kinglake's;  but  the  commonplace  truth  has  to  be 
told  that  the  invasion  of  the  Crimea  was  not  due  to  the 


568  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

\ 

crotchet  of  one  minister  and   the  drowsiness  of  all  the 

rest. 

The  invasion  of  the  Crimea,  however,  was  not  a  soldier's 
project.  It  was  not  welcomed  by  the  English  or  the 
French  commander.  It  was  undertaken  by  Lord  Raglan 
out  of  deference  to  the  recommendations  of  the  Govern-! 
ment;  and  by  Marshal  St.  Arnaud  out  of  deference  to  the 
Emperor  of  the  French,  and  because  Lord  Raglan,  too, 
did  not  see  his  way  to  decline  the  responsibility  of  it.  The 
allied  forces  were,  therefore,  conveyed  to  the  south-western 
shore  of  the  Crimea,  and  effected  a  landing  in  Kalamita 
Bay,  a  short  distance  north  of  the  point  at  which  the  river 
Alma  runs  into  the  sea.  Sebastopol  itself  lies  about  thirty 
miles  to  the  south ;  and  then  more  southward  still,  divided 
by  the  bulk  of  a  jutting  promontory  from  Sebastopol,  is 
the  harbor  of  Balaklava.  The  disembarkation  began  on 
the  morning  of  September  14th,  1854.  It  was  completed 
on  the  fifth  day;  and  there  were  then  some  27,000  English, 
30,000  French,  and  7,000  Turks  landed  on  the  shores  of 
Catherine  the  Great's  Crimea.  The  landing  was  effected 
without  any  opposition  from  the  Russians.  On  September 
19th,  the  allies  marched  out  of  their  encampments  and 
moved  southward  in  the  direction  of  Sebastopol.  They 
had  a  skirmish  or  two  with  a  reconnoitring  force  of  Rus- 
sian cavalry  and  Cossacks;  but  they  had  no  .business  of 
genuine  war  until  they  reached  the  nearer  bank  of  the 
Alma.  The  Russians,  in  great  strength,  had  taken  up 
a  splendid  position  on  the  heights  that  fringed  the  other 
side  of  the  river.  The  allied  forces  reached  the  Alma 
about  noon  on  September  20th.  They  found  that  they  had 
to  cross  the  river  in  the  face  of  the  Russian  batteries 
armed  with  heavy  guns  on  the  highest  point  of  the  hills 
or  bluffs,  of  scattered  artillery,  and  of  dense  masses  of 
infantry  which  covered  the  hills.  The  Russians  were 
under  the  command  of  Prince  Mentschikoff.  It  is  certain 
that  Prince  Mentschikoff  believed  his  position  imassail- 
able,  and  was  convinced  that  his  enemies  were  delivered 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  569 

into  his  hands  when  he  saw  the  allies  approach  and  at- 
tempt to  effect  the  crossing  of  the  river.  He  had  allowed 
them,  of  deliberate  purpose,  to  approach  thus  far.  He 
might  have  attacked  them  on  their  landing,  or  on  their 
two  days'  march  toward  the  river.  But  he  did  not  choose 
to  do  anything  of  the  kind.  He  had  carefully  sought  out 
a  strong  and  what  he  considered  an  impregnable  position. 
He  had  found  it,  as  he  believed,  on  the  south  bank  of  the 
Alma;  and  there  he  was  simply  biding  his  time.  His 
idea  was  that  he  could  hold  his  ground  for  some  days 
against  the  allies  with  ease;  that  he  would  keep  them 
there,  play  with  them,  until  the  great  re-enforcements  he 
was  expecting  could  come  to  him ;  and  then  he  would 
suddenly  take  the  offensive  and  crush  the  enemy.  He 
proposed  to  make  of  the  Alma  and  its  banks  the  grave  of 
the  invaders.  But  with  characteristic  arrogance  and  lack 
of  care  he  had  neglected  some  of  the  very  precautions 
which  were  essentially  necessary  to  secure  any  position, 
however  strong.  He  had  not  taken  the  pains  to  make 
himself  certain  that  every  easy  access  to  his  position  was 
closed  against  the  attack  of  the  enemy.  The  attack  was 
made  with  desperate  courage  on  the  part  of  the  allies,  but 
without  any  great  skill  of  leadership  or  tenacity  of  dis- 
cipline. It  was  rather  a  pell-mell  sort  of  fight,  in  which 
the  headlong  courage  and  the  indomitable  obstinacy  of  the 
English  and  French  troops  carried  all  before  them  at  last. 
A  study  of  the  battle  is  of  little  profit  to  the  ordinary 
reader.  It  was  an  heroic  scramble.  There  was  little 
coherence  of  action  between  the  allied  forces.  But  there 
was  happily  an  almost  total  absence  of  generalship  on  the 
part  of  the  Russians.  The  soldiers  of  the  Czar  fought 
stoutly  and  stubbornly,  as  they  have  always  done;  but 
they  could  not  stand  up  against  the  blended  vehemence 
and  obstinacy  of  the  English  and  French.  The  river  was 
crossed,  the  opposite  heights  were  mounted.  Prince  Ment- 
schikoff's  great  redoubt  was  carried,  the  Russians  were 
driven  from  the  field,  the  allies  occupied  their  ground; 


^70  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  victory  was  to  the  Western  Powers.     Indeed,  it  would 
not  be  unfair  to  say  that  the  victory  was  to  the  English : 
owing  to  whatever  cause,  the  French  did  not  take  that 
share  in  the  heat  of  the  battle  which  their  strength  and 
their  military  genius  might  have  led  men  to  expect.     St. 
Arnaud,  their  commander-in-chief,  was  in  wretched  health, 
on  the  point  of  death,  in  fact;  he  was  in  no  condition  to 
guide  the  battle ;  a  brilliant  enterprise  of  General  Bosquet 
was  ill-supported,  and  had  nearly  proved  a  failure ;  and 
Prince  Napoleon's  division  got  hopelessly  jammed  up  and 
confused.     Perhaps  it  would  be  fairer  to  say  that  in  the 
confusion  and  scramble  of  the  whole  affair  we  were  more 
lucky  than  the  French.     If  a  number  of  men  are  rushing 
headlong  and  in  the  dark  toward  some  distant  point,  one 
may  run  against  an  unthought-of  obstacle  and  fall  down, 
and  so  lose  his  chance,  while  his  comrade  happens  to  meet 
with  no  such  stumbling-block,  and  goes  right  on.     Per- 
haps this  illustration  may  not  unfairly  distribute  the  parts 
taken  in  the  battle.      It  would  be  superfluous  to  say  that 
the  French  fought  splendidly  where  they  had  any  real 
chance  of  fighting.      But  the  luck  of  the  day  was  not  with 
them.     On  all  sides  the  battle  was  fought  without  general- 
ship.    On  all  sides  the  bravery  of  the  officers  and  men 
was  worthy  of  any  general.     Our  men  were  the  luckiest. 
They  saw  the  heights;  they  saw  the  enemy  there;  they 
made  for  him ;  they  got  at  him ;  they  would  not  go  back ; 
and  so  he  had  to  give  way.     That  was  the  history  of  the 
day.     The  big  scramble  was  all  over  in  a  few  hours.     The 
first  field  was  fought,  and  we  had  won. 

The  Russians  ought  to  have  been  pursued.  They  them- 
selves fully  expected  a  pursuit.  They  retreated  in  some- 
thing  like  utter  confusion,  eager  to  put  the  Katcha  river, 
which  runs  south  of  the  Alma  and  with  a  somewhat  sim- 
ilar course,  between  them  and  the  imaginary  pursuers. 
Had  they  been  followed  to  the  Katcha  they  might  have 
been  all  made  prisoners  or  destroyed.  But  there  was  no 
pursuit.     Lord  Raglan  was  eager  to  follow  up  the  victory  -, 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  571 

but  the  French  had  as  yet  hardly  any  cavalry,  and  Marshal 
St.  Arnaud  would  not  agree  to  any  further  enterprise  that 
day.  Lord  Raglan  believed  that  he  ought  not  to  persist; 
and  nothing  was  done.  The  Russians  were  unable  at  first 
to  believe  in  their  good  fortune.  It  seemed  to  them  for  a 
long  time  impossible  that  any  commanders  in  the  world 
could  have  failed,  under  conditions  so  tempting,  to  follow 
a  flying  and  disordered  enemy. 

Except  for  the  bravery  of  those  who  fought,  the  battle 
was  not  much  to  boast  of.  The  allies  together  consider- 
ably outnumbered  the  Russians,  although,  from  the  causes 
we  have  mentioned,  the  Englishmen  were  left  throughout 
the  greater  part  of  the  day  to  encounter  an  enemy  numer- 
ically superior,  posted  on  difficult  and  commanding  heights. 
But  it  was  the  first  great  battle  which  for  nearly  forty  years 
our  soldiers  had  fought  with  a  civilized  enemy.  The 
military  authorities  and  the  country  were  well  disposed  to 
make  the  most  of  it.  At  this  distance  of  time  it  is  almost 
touching  to  read  some  of  the  heroic  contemporaneous  de- 
scriptions of  the  great  scramble  of  the  Alma.  It  might 
almost  seem  as  if,  in  the  imaginings  of  the  enthusiastic 
historians,  Englishmen  had  never  mounted  heights  and 
defeated  superior  numbers  before.  The  sublime  triumphs 
against  every  adverse  condition  which  had  been  won  by 
the  genius  of  a  Marlborough  or  a  Wellington  could  not  have 
been  celebrated  in  language  of  more  exalted  dithyrambic 
pomp.  The  gallant  medley  on  the  banks  of  the  Alma  and 
the  fruitless  interval  of  inaction  that  followed  it  were  told 
of  as  if  men  were  speaking  of  some  battle  of  the  gods. 

Very  soon,  however,  a  different  note  came  to  be  sounded. 
The  campaign  had  been  opened  under  conditions  differ- 
ing from  those  of  most  campaigns  that  went  before  it. 
Science  had  added  many  new  discoveries  to  the  art  of  war. 
Literature  had  added  one  remarkable  contribution  of  her 
own  to  the  conditions  amid  which  campaigns  were  to  be 
carried  on.  She  had  added  the  "  special  correspondent." 
The  old-fashioned  historiographer  of  wars   travelled    to 


S72  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

please  sovereigns,  and  minister  to  the  self-conceit  of  con- 
querors. The  modern  special  correspondent  had  a  very 
different  purpose.  He  watched  the  movements  of  ar- 
mies and  criticised  the  policy  of  generals  in  the  interest  of 
some  journal,  which  for  its  part  was  concerned  only  for 
the  information  of  the  public.  No  favor  that  courts  or 
monarchs  could  bestow  was  worthy  a  moment's  considera- 
tion in  the  mind  even  of  the  most  selfish  proprietor  of  a 
newspaper  when  compared  with  the  reward  which  the 
public  could  give  to  him  and  to  his  paper  for  quick  and 
accurate  news  and  trustworthy  comment.  The  business 
of  the  special  correspondent  has  grown  so  much  since  the 
Crimean  War  that  we  are  now  inclined  to  look  back 
upon  the  war  correspondents  of  those  days  almost  as  men 
then  did  upon  the  old-fashioned  historiographer.  The 
war  correspondent  now  scrawls  his  despatches  as  he  sits  in 
his  saddle  under  the  fire  of  the  enemy ;  he  scrawls  them 
with  a  pencil,  noting  and  describing  each  incident  of  the 
fight,  so  far  as  he  can  see  it,  as  coolly  as  if  he  were  de- 
scribing a  review  of  volunteers  in  Hyde  Park ;  and  he  con- 
trives to  send  off  his  narrative  by  telegraph  before  the 
victor  in  the  fight  has  begun  to  pursue,  or  has  settled 
down  to  hold  the  ground  he  won;  and  the  war  corre- 
spondent's story  is  expected  to  be  as  brilliant  and  pictur- 
esque in  style  as  it  ought  to  be  exact  and  faithful  in  its 
statements.  In  the  days  of  the  Crimea  things  had  not 
advanced  quite  so  far  as  that ;  the  war  was  well  on  before 
the  submarine  telegraph  between  Varna  and  the  Crimea 
allowed  of  daily  reports;  but  the  feats  of  the  war  corre- 
spondent then  filled  men's  minds  with  wonder.  When  the 
expedition  was  leaving  England  it  was  accompanied  by  a 
special  correspondent  from  each  of  the  great  daily  papers 
of  London.  The  Times  sent  out  a  representative  whose 
name  almost  immediately  became  celebrated — Mr.  Wil- 
liam Howard  Russell,  the  preux  chevalier  of  war  correspond- 
ents in  that  day,  as  Mr.  Archibald  Forbes  of  the  Daily 
News  is  in  this.     Mr.  Russell  rendered  some  service  to  the 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  573 

English  army  and  to  his  country,  however,  which  no  bril- 
liancy of  literary  style  would  alone  have  enabled  him  to 
do.  It  was  to  his  great  credit  as  a  man  of  judgment  and 
observation  that,  being  a  civilian  who  had  never  before 
seen  one  puff  of  war-smoke,  he  was  able  to  distinguish 
between  the  confusion  inseparable  from  all  actual  levying 
of  war  and  the  confusion  that  comes  of  distinctly  bad 
administration.  To  the  unaccustomed  eye  of  an  ordinary 
civilian  the  whole  progress  of  a  campaign,  the  develop- 
ment of  a  battle,  the  arrangements  of  the  commissariat, 
appear,  at  any  moment  of  actual  pressure,  to  be  nothing 
but  a  mass  of  confusion.  He  is  accustomed  in  civil  life 
to  find  everything  in  its  proper  place,  and  every  emergency 
well  provided  for.  When  he  is  suddenly  plunged  into 
the  midst  of  a  campaign  he  is  apt  to  think  that  everything 
must  be  going  wrong;  or  else  he  assumes  contentedly  that 
the  whole  is  in  the  hands  of  persons  who  know  better  than 
he,  and  that  it  would  be  absurd  on  his  part  to  attempt  to 
criticise  the  arrangements  of  the  men  whose  business  it 
is  to  understand  them,  Mr.  Russell  soon  saw  that  there 
was  confusion ;  and  he  had  the  soundness  of  judgment  to 
know  that  the  confusion  was  that  of  a  breaking-down 
system.  Therefore,  while  the  fervor  of  delight  in  the 
courage  and  success  of  our  army  was  still  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  the  public  at  home,  while  every  music-hall  was 
ringing  with  the  cheap  rewards  of  valor  in  the  shape  of 
popular  glorifications  of  our  commanders  and  our  soldiers, 
the  readers  of  the  Times  began  to  learn  that  things  were 
faring  badly  indeed  with  the  conquering  army  of  the 
Alma.  The  ranks  were  thinned  by  the  ravages  of  chol- 
era. The  men  were  pursued  by  cholera  to  the  very  battle- 
field. Lord  Raglan  himself  said.  No  system  can  charm 
away  all  the  effects  of  climate;  but  it  appeared  only  too 
soon  that  the  arrangements  made  to  encounter  the  indirect 
and  inevitable  dangers  of  a  campaign  were  miserably 
inefficient.  The  hospitals  were  in  a  wretchedly  disorgan- 
ized condition.     Stores  of  medicines  and    strengthening 


574  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

food  were  decaying  in  places  where  no  one  wanted  them 
or  could  well  get  at  them,  while  men  were  dying  in  hun- 
dreds among  our  tents  in  the  Crimea  for  lack  of  them. 
The  system  of  clothing,  of  transport,  of  feeding,  of  nurs- 
ing— everything  had  broken  down.  Ample  provisions  had 
been  got  together  and  paid  for;  and  when  they  came  to 
be  needed  no  one  knew  where  to  get  at  them.  The  special 
correspondent  of  \X\&Times  and  other  correspondents  con- 
tinued to  din  these  things  into  the  ears  of  the  public  at 
home.  Exultation  began  to  give  way  to  a  feeling  of  dis- 
may. The  patriotic  anger  against  the  Russians  was 
changed  for  a  mood  of  deep  indignation  against  our  own 
authorities  and  our  own  war  administration.  It  soon  be- 
came apparent  to  every  one  that  the  w^hole  campaign  had 
been  planned  on  the  assumption  that  it  was  to  be  like  the 
career  of  the  hero  whom  Byron  laments,  "  brief,  brave, 
and  glorious. "  Our  military  authorities  here  at  home — 
we  do  not  speak  of  the  commanders  in  the  field — had 
made  up  their  minds  that  Sebastopol  was  to  fall,  like 
another  Jericho,  at  the  sound  of  the  war-trumpets'  blast. 

Our  commanders  in  the  field  were,  on  the  contrary, 
rather  disposed  to  overrate  than  to  underrate  the  strength 
of  the  Russians.  It  was,  therefore,  somewhat  like  the 
condition  of  things  described  in  Macaulay's  ballad;  those 
behind  cried  forward,  those  in  front  called  back.  It  is 
very  likely  that  if  a  sudden  dash  had  been  made  at  Sebas- 
topol by  land  and  sea,  it  might  have  been  taken  almost  at 
the  very  opening  of  the  war.  But  the  delay  gave  the 
Russians  full  warning,  and  the)'  did  not  neglect  it.  On 
the  third  day  after  the  battle  of  the  Alma  the  Russians  sank 
seven  vessels  of  their  Black  Sea  fleet  at  the  entrance  of  the 
harbor  of  Sebastopol.  This  was  done  full  in  the  sight  of 
the  allied  fleets,  who  at  first,  misunderstanding  the  move- 
ments going  on  among  the  enemy,  thought  the  Russian 
squadron  were  about  to  come  out  from  their  shelter  and 
try  conclusions  with  the  Western  ships.  But  the  real  pur- 
pose of  the  Russians  became  soon  apparent.     Under  the 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  575 

eyes  of  the  allies  the  seven  vessels  slowly  settled  down 
and  sank  in  the  water,  until  at  last  only  the  tops  of  their 
masts  were  to  be  seen;  and  the  entrance  of  the  harbor 
was  barred  as  by  sunken  rocks  against  any  approach  of  an 
enemy's  ship.  There  was  an  end  to  every  dream  of  a  sud- 
den capture  of  Sebastopol. 

The  allied  armies  moved  again  from  their  positions  on 
the  Alma;  but  they  did  not  direct  their  march  to  the 
north  side  of  Sebastopol.  They  made  for  Balaklava, 
which  lies  south  of  the  city,  on  the  other  side  of  a  prom- 
ontor}%  and  which  has  a  port  that  might  enable  them  to 
secure  a  constant  means  of  communication  betw^een  the 
armies  and  the  fleets.  To  reach  Balaklava  the  allied 
forces  had  to  undertake  a  long  and  fatiguing  flank  march, 
passing  Sebastopol  on  their  right.  They  accomplished 
the  march  in  safety,  and  occupied  the  heights  above  Bala- 
klava, while  the  fleets  appeared  at  the  same  time  in  the 
harbor.  Sebastopol  was  but  a  few  miles  off,  and  prepa- 
rations were  at  once  made  for  an  attack  on  it  by  land  and 
sea.  On  October  17th  the  attack  began.  It  was  practi- 
cally a  failure.  Nothing  better,  indeed,  could  well  have 
been  expected.  The  fleet  could  not  get  near  enough  to 
the  sea-forts  of  Sebastopol  to  make  their  broadsides  of  any 
real  effect,  because  of  the  shallow  water  and  the  sunken 
ships;  and  although  the  attack  from  the  land  was  vigorous 
and  was  fiercely  kept  up,  yet  it  could  not  carry  its  object. 
It  became  clear  that  Sebastopol  was  not  to  be  taken  by 
any  coup  de  fnain,  and  the  allies  had  not  men  enough  to 
invest  it.  They  were,  therefore,  to  some  extent  them- 
selves in  the  condition  of  a  besieged  force,  for  the  Russians 
had  a  large  army  outside  Sebastopol  ready  to  make  every 
sacrifice  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  English  and 
French  from  getting  even  a  chance  of  undisturbed  opera- 
tions against  it. 

The  Russians  attacked  the  allies  fiercely  on  October 
25th,  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  possession  of  Balaklava. 
The  attempt  was  bold  and  brilliant,  but  it  was  splendidly 


S76  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

repulsed.  Never  did  a  day  of  battle  do  more  credit  to 
English  courage,  or  less,  perhaps,  to  English  generalship. 
The  cavalry  particularly  distinguished  themselves.  It 
was  in  great  measure,  on  our  side,  a  cavalry  action.  It 
will  be  memorable  in  all  English  history  as  the  battle  in 
which  occurred  the  famous  charge  of  the  Light  Brigade. 
Owing  to  some  fatal  misconception  of  the  meaning  of  an 
order  from  the  commander-in-chief,  the  Light  Brigade, 
607  men  in  all,  charged  what  has  been  rightly  described 
as  "the  Russian  army  in  position."  The  brigade  was 
composed  of  118  men  of  the  4th  Light  Dragoons;  104  of 
the  8th  Hussars;  no  of  the  nth  Hussars;  130  of  the  13th 
Light  Dragoons;  and  145  of  the  17th  Lancers.  Of  the 
607  men  198  came  back.  Long,  painful,  and  hopeless 
were  the  disputes  about  this  fatal  order.  The  controversy 
can  never  be  wholly  settled.  The  ofRcer  who  bore  the 
order  was  one  of  the  first  who  fell  in  the  outset.  All 
Europe,  all  the  world,  rang  with  wonder  and  admiration 
of  the  futile  and  splendid  charge.  The  poet-laureate 
sang  of  it  in  spirited  verses.  Perhaps  its  best  epitaph  was 
contained  in  the  celebrated  comment  ascribed  to  the 
French  General  Bosquet,  and  which  has  since  become 
proverbial,  and  been  quoted  until  men  are  well-nigh  tired 
of  it — "  It  was  magnificent,  but  it  was  not  war." 

Next  day  the  enemy  made  another  vigorous  attack,  on 
a  much  larger  scale,  moving  out  of  Sebastopol  itself,  and 
Vv'ere  again  repulsed.  The  allies  were  able  to  prevent  the 
troops  who  made  the  sortie  from  co-operating  with  the 
Russian  army  outside  who  had  attacked  at  Balaklava. 
The  latter  were  endeavoring  to  intrench  themselves  at  the 
little  village  of  Inkerman,  lying  on  the  north  of  Sebastopol ; 
but  the  stout  resistance  they  met  with  from  the  allies 
frustrated  their  plans.  On  November  5th  the  Russians 
made  another  grand  attack  on  the  allies,  chiefly  on  the 
British,  and  were  once  more  splendidly  repulsed.  The 
plateau  of  Inkerman  was  the  principal  scene  of  the  strug- 
gle.    It  was  occupied  by  the  Guards  and  a  few  British 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  577 

regiments,  on  whom  fell,  until  General  Bosquet  with  his 
French  was  able  to  come  to  their  assistance,  the  task  of 
resisting  a  Russian  army.  This  was  the  severest  and  the 
fiercest  engagement  of  the  campaign.  The  loss  to  the 
English  was  2,612,  of  whom  145  were  officers.  The  French 
lost  about  1,700.  The  Russians  were  believed  to  have  lost 
12,000  men;  but  at  no  time  could  any  clear  account  be 
obtained  of  the  Russian  losses.  It  was  believed  that  they 
brought  a  force  of  50,000  men  to  the  attack.  Inkerman 
was  described  at  the  time  as  the  soldiers'  battle.  Strategy, 
it  was  said  everywhere,  there  was  none.  The  attack  was 
made  under  cover  of  a  dark  and  drizzling  mist.  The  battle 
was  fought  for  a  while  almost  absolutely  in  the  dark. 
There  was  hardly  any  attempt  to  direct  the  allies  by  any 
principles  of  scientific  warfare.  The  soldiers  fought  stub- 
bornly a  series  of  hand-to-hand  fights,  and  we  are  entitled 
to  say  that  the  better  men  won  in  the  end.  We  fully  ad- 
mit that  it  was  a  soldiers'  battle.  All  the  comment  we 
have  to  make  upon  the  epithet  is,  that  we  do  not  exact!)' 
know  which  of  the  engagements  fought  in  the  Crimea  was 
anything  but  a  soldiers'  battle.  Of  course,  with  the 
soldiers  we  take  the  officers.  A  battle  in  the  Crimea  with 
which  generalship  had  anything  particular  to  do  has  cer- 
tainly not  come  under  the  notice  of  this  writer.  Mr. 
Kinglake  tells  that  at  Alma  Marshal  St.  Arnaud,  the 
French  commander-in-chief,  addressing  General  Canrobert 
and  Prince  Napoleon,  said :  "  With  such  men  as  you  I  have 
no  orders  to  give ;  I  have  but  to  point  to  the  enemy. " 
This  seems  to  have  been  the  general  principle  on  which 
the  commanders  conducted  the  campaign.  There  were 
the  enemy's  forces — let  the  men  go  at  them  any  way  they 
could.  Nor  under  the  circumstances  could  anything  much 
better  have  been  done.  When  orders  were  given,  it  ap- 
peared more  than  once  as  if  things  would  have  gone  better 
without  them.  The  soldier  won  his  battle  always.  No 
general  could  prevent  him  from  doing  that. 

Meanwhile,  what  were  people  saying  in  England.'*     They 
Vol.  I.— -37 


578  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

were  indignantly  declaring  that  the  whole  campaign  was  a 
muddle.  It  was  evident  now  that  Sebastopol  was  not  going 
to  fall  all  at  once;  it  was  evident,  too,  that  the  prepara- 
tions had  been  made  on  the  assumption  that  it  must  fall  at 
once.  To  make  the  disappointment  more  bitter  at  home, 
the  public  had  been  deceived  for  a  few  days  by  a  false  re- 
port of  the  taking  of  Sebastopol ;  and  the  disappointment 
naturally  increased  the  impatience  and  dissatisfaction  of 
Englishmen.  The  fleet  that  had  been  sent  out  to  the 
Baltic  came  back  without  having  accomplished  anything 
in  particular;  and  although  there  really  was  nothing  in 
particular  that  it  could  have  accomplished  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, yet  many  people  were  as  angry  as  if  it  had 
culpably  allowed  the  enemy  to  escape  it  on  the  open  seas. 
The  sailing  of  the  Baltic  fleet  had,  indeed,  been  preceded 
by  ceremonials  especially  calculated  to  make  any  enter- 
prise ridiculous  which  failed  to  achieve  some  startling 
success.  It  was  put  under  the  command  of  Sir  Charles 
Napier,  a  brave  old  salt  of  the  fast-fading  school  of  Smol- 
lett's Commodore  Trunnion,  rough,  dashing,  bull-headed, 
likely  enough  to  succeed  where  sheer  force  and  courage 
could  win  victories,  but  wanting  in  all  the  intellectual 
qualities  of  a  commander,  and  endowed  with  a  violent 
tongue  and  an  almost  unmatched  indiscretion.  Sir  Charles 
Napier  was  a  member  of  a  family  famed  for  its  warriors; 
but  he  had  not  anything  like  the  capacity  of  his  cousin, 
the  other  Charles  Napier,  the  conqueror  of  Scinde,  or  the 
intellect  of  Sir  William  Napier,  the  historian  of  the  Pen- 
insular War.  He  had  won  some  signal  and  surprising 
successes  in  the  Portuguese  civil  war  and  in  Syria;  all 
under  conditions  wholly  different,  and  with  an  enemy 
wholly  different  from  those  he  would  have  to  encounter 
in  the  Baltic.  But  the  voice  of  admiring  friends  was 
tumultuously  raised  to  predict  splendid  things  for  him 
before  his  fleet  had  left  its  port,  and  he  himself  quite  for- 
got, in  his  rough  self-confidence,  the  difference  between 
boasting  when  one  is  taking  off  his  armor  and  boasting 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  579 

when  one  is  only  putting  it  on.  His  friends  entertained 
him  at  a  farewell  dinner  at  the  Reform  Club.  Lord  Pal- 
merston  was  present,  and  Sir  James  Graham,  the  First 
Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  and  a  great  deal  of  exuberant  non- 
sense was  talked.  Lord  Palmerston,  carried  away  by  his 
natural  bo?ihomie  and  his  high  animal  spirits,  showered  the 
most  extravagant  praises  upon  the  gallant  admiral,  inter- 
mixed with  jokes  which  set  the  company  laughing  con- 
sumedly,  but  which  read  by  the  outer  public  next  day 
seemed  unbecoming  preludes  to  an  expedition  that  was  to 
be  part  of  a  great  war  and  of  terrible  national  sacrifices. 
The  one  only  thing  that  could  have  excused  the  whole 
performance  would  have  been  some  overwhelming  success 
on  the  part  of  him  who  was  its  hero.  But  it  is  not  prob- 
able that  a  Dundonald  or  even  a  Nelson  could  have  done 
much  in  the  Baltic  just  then ;  and  Napier  was  not  a  Dun- 
donald or  a  Nelson.  The  Baltic  fleet  came  home  safely 
after  a  while,  its  commander  having  brought  with  him 
nothing  but  a  grievance  which  lasted  him  all  the  remainder 
of  his  life.  The  public  were  amazed,  scornful,  wrathful ; 
they  began  to  think  that  they  were  destined  to  see  nothing 
but  failure  as  the  fruit  of  the  campaign.  In  truth,  they 
were  extravagantly  impatient.  Perhaps  they  were  not  to 
be  blamed.  Their  leaders,  who  ought  to  have  known  bet- 
ter, had  been  filling  them  with  the  idea  that  they  had 
nothing  to  do  but  to  sweep  the  enemy  from  sea  and  land. 

The  temper  of  a  people  thus  stimulated  and  thus  disap- 
pointed is  almost  always  indiscriminating  and  unreasonable 
in  its  censure.  The  first  idea  is  to  find  a  victim.  The  vic- 
tim on  whom  the  anger  of  a  large  portion  of  the  public 
turned  in  this  instance  was  the  Prince  Consort.  The  most 
absurd  ideas,  the  most  cruel  and  baseless  calumnies,  were  in 
circulation  about  him.  He  was  accused  of  having,  out  of 
some  inscrutable  motive,  made  use  of  all  his  secret  influ- 
ence to  prevent  the  success  of  the  campaign.  He  was 
charged  with  being  in  a  conspiracy  with  Prussia,  with 
Russia,  with  no  one  knew  exactly  whom,  to  weaken  the 


580  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

strength  of  England,  and  secure  a  triumph  for  her  enemies. 
Stories  were  actually  told  at  one  time  of  his  having  been 
arrested  for  high  treason.  He  had,  in  one  of  his  speeches 
about  this  time,  said  that  constitutional  government  was 
under  a  heavy  trial,  and  could  only  pass  triumphantly 
through  it  if  the  country  would  grant  its  confidence  to  her 
Majesty's  Government.  In  this  observation,  as  the  whole 
context  of  the  speech  showed,  the  Prince  was  only  explain- 
ing that  the  Queen's  Government  were  placed  at  a  disad- 
vantage in  the  carrying  on  of  a  war,  as  compared  with  a 
Government  like  that  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  who 
could  act  of  his  own  arbitrary  will,  without  check,  delay, 
or  control  on  the  part  of  any  Parliamentary  body.  But 
the  speech  was  instantly  fastened  on  as  illustrating  the 
Prince's  settled  and  unconquerable  dislike  of  all  constitu- 
tional and  popular  principles  of  government.  Those  who 
opposed  the  Prince  had  not,  indeed,  been  waiting  for  his 
speech  at  the  Trinity  House  dinner  to  denounce  and  con- 
demn him  ;  but  the  sentence  in  that  speech  to  which  refer- 
ence has  been  made  opened  upon  him  a  new  torrent  of 
hostile  criticism.  The  charges  which  sprang  of  this  heated 
and  unjust  temper  on  the  part  of  the  public  did  not,  in- 
deed, long  prevail  against  the  Prince  Consort.  When 
once  the  subject  came  to  be  taken  up  in  Parliament,  it 
was  shown  almost  in  a  moment  that  there  was  not  the 
slightest  ground  or  excuse  for  any  of  the  absurd  surmises 
and  cruel  .suspicions  which  had  been  creating  so  much 
agitation.  The  agitation  collapsed  in  a  moment.  But 
while  it  lasted  it  was  both  vehement  and  intense,  and  gave 
much  pain  to  the  Prince,  and  far  more  pain  still  to  the 
Queen,  his  wife. 

We  have  seen  more  lately,  and  on  a  larger  scale,  some- 
thing like  the  phenomenon  of  that  time.  During  the  war 
between  France  and  Germany  the  people  of  Paris  went 
nearly  wild  with  the  idea  that  they  had  been  betrayed,  and 
were  clamorous  for  victims  to  punish  anywhere  or  anyhow. 
To  many  calm  Englishmen  this  seemed  monstrously  un- 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  581 

reasonable  and  unworthy ;  and  the  French  people  received 
from  English  writers  many  grave  rebukes  and  wise  ex- 
hortations. But  the  temper  of  the  English  public  at  one 
period  of  the  Crimean  War  was  becoming  very  like  that 
which  set  Paris  wild  during  the  disastrous  struggle  with 
Germany.  The  passions  of  peoples  are,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
very  much  alike  in  their  impulses  and  even  in  their  mani- 
festations; and  if  England  during  the  Crimean  War  never 
came  to  the  wild  condition  into  which  Paris  fell  during 
the  later  struggle,  it  is  perhaps  rather  because,  on  the 
whole,  things  went  well  with  England,  than  in  con- 
sequence of  any  very  great  superiority  of  Englishmen  in 
judgment  and  self-restraint  over  the  excitable  people  of 
France.  Certainly  those  who  remember  what  we  may 
call  the  dark  days  of  the  Crimean  campaign,  when  disap- 
pointment following  on  extravagant  confidence  had  incited 
popular  passion  to  call  for  some  victim,  will  find  them- 
selves slow  to  set  a  limit  to  the  lengths  that  passion  might 
have  reached  if  the  Russians  had  actually  been  successful 
even  in  one  or  two  battles. 

The  winter  was  gloomy  at  home  as  well  as  abroad. 
The  news  constantly  arriving  from  the  Crimea  told  only 
of  devastation  caused  by  foes  far  more  formidable  than 
the  Russians — sickness,  bad  weather,  bad  management. 
The  Black  Sea  was  SAvept  and  scourged  by  terrible  storms. 
The  destruction  of  transport-ships  laden  with  winter  stores 
for  our  men  was  of  incalculable  injury  to  the  army. 
Clothing,  blanketing,  provisions,  hospital  necessaries  of 
all  kinds,  were  destroyed  in  vast  quantities.  The  loss  of 
life  among  the  crews  of  the  vessels  was  immense.  A  storm 
was  nearly  as  disastrous  in  this  way  as  a  battle.  On  shore 
the  sufferings  of  the  army  were  unspeakable.  The  tents 
were  torn  from  their  pegs  and  blown  away.  The  officers 
and  men  were  exposed  to  the  bitter  cold  and  the  fierce 
stormy  blasts.  Our  soldiers  had  for  the  most  part  little 
experience  or  even  idea  of  such  cold  as  they  had  to  en- 
counter this  gloomy  winter.     The  intensity  of  the  cold 


582  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

was  so  great  that  no  one  might  dare  to  touch  any  metal 
substance  in  the  open  air  with  his  bare  hand  under  penalty 
of  leaving  the  skin  behind  him.  The  hospitals  for  the 
sick  and  wounded  at  Scutari  were  in  a  wretchedly  disor- 
ganized condition.  They  were,  for  the  most  part,  in  an 
absolutely  chaotic  condition  as  regards  arrangement  and 
supply.  In  some  instances  medical  stores  were  left  to 
decay  at  Varna,  or  were  found  lying  useless  in  the  holds 
of  vessels  in  Balaklava  Bay,  which  were  needed  for  the 
wounded  at  Scutari.  The  medical  officers  were  able  and 
zealous  men ;  the  stores  were  provided  and  paid  for,  so  far 
as  our  Government  was  concerned;  but  the  stores  were 
not  brought  to  the  medical  men.  These  had  their  hands 
all  but  idle,  their  eyes  and  souls  tortured  by  the  sight  of 
sufferings  which  they  were  unable  to  relieve  for  want  of 
the  commonest  appliances  of  the  hospital.  The  most  ex- 
traordinary instances  of  blunder  and  confusion  were  con- 
stantly coming  to  light.  Great  consignments  of  boots  ar- 
rived, and  were  found  to  be  all  for  the  left  foot.  Mules 
for  the  conveyance  of  stores  were  contracted  for  and  de- 
livered, but  delivered  so  that  they  came  into  the  hands  of 
the  Russians,  and  not  of  us.  Shameful  frauds  were  per- 
petrated in  the  instance  of  some  of  the  contracts  for  pre- 
served meat.  "One  man's  preserved  meat,"  exclaimed 
Punch,  with  bitter  humor,  "  is  another  man's  poison. "  The 
evils  of  the  hospital  disorganization  were  happily  made  a 
means  of  bringing  about  a  new  system  of  attending  to  the 
sick  and  wounded  in  war,  which  has  already  created  some- 
thing like  a  revolution  in  the  manner  of  treating  the  vic- 
tims of  battle.  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  horrified  at  the  way 
in  which  things  were  managed  in  Scutari  and  the  Crimea, 
applied  to  a  distinguished  woman,  who  had  long  taken  a 
deep  interest  in  hospital  reform,  to  superintend  personally 
their  nursing  of  the  soldiers.  Miss  Florence  Nightingale 
was  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  English  country  gentleman. 
She  had  chosen  not  to  pass  her  life  in  fashionable  or 
sesthetic   inactivity,   and  had  from  a  very  early  period 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  583 

turnsd  her  attention  to  sanatory  questions.  She  had 
studied  nursing  as  a  science  and  a  system;  and  had 
made  herself  acquainted  with  the  working  of  various  Con- 
tinental institutions;  and  about  the  time  when  the  war 
broke  out  she  was  actually  engaged  in  reorganizing  the 
Sick  Governesses'  Institution  in  Harley  Street,  London. 
To  her  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert  turned.  He  offered  her,  if 
she  would  accept  the  task  he  proposed,  plenary  authority 
over  all  the  nurses,  and  an  unlimited  power  of  drawing  on 
the  Government  for  whatever  she  might  think  necessary 
to  the  success  of  the  imdertaking.  Miss  Nightingale  ac- 
cepted the  task,  and  went  out  to  Scutari,  accompanied  by 
some  women  of  rank  like  her  own,  and  a  trained  staff  of 
nurses.  They  speedily  reduced  chaos  into  order;  and 
from  the  time  of  their  landing  in  Scutari  there  was  at 
least  one  department  of  the  business  of  war  which  was 
never  again  a  subject  of  complaint.  The  spirit  of  the 
chivalric  days  had  been  restored  under  better  auspices  for 
its  abiding  influence.  Ladies  of  rank  once  more  devoted 
themselves  to  the  service  of  the  wounded,  and  the  end  was 
come  of  the  Mrs.  Gamp  and  Mrs.  Prig  type  of  nurse. 
Sidney  Herbert,  in  his  letter  to  Miss  Nightingale,  had 
said  that  her  example,  if  she  accepted  the  task  he  had 
proposed,  would  "multiply  the  good  to  all  time."  These 
words  proved  to  have  no  exaggeration  in  them.  We  have 
never  seen  a  war  since  in  which  women  of  education  and 
of  genuine  devotion  have  not  given  themselves  up  to  the 
task  of  caring  for  the  wounded.  The  Geneva  Convention 
and  the  bearing  of  the  Red  Cross  are  among  the  results  of 
Florence  Nightingale's  work  in  the  Crimea. 

But  the  siege  of  Sebastopol  was  meanwhile  dragging 
heavily  along;  and  sometimes  it  was  not  quite  certain 
which  ought  to  be  called  the  besieged — the  Russians  in 
the  city  or  the  allies  encamped  in  sight  of  it.  During 
some  months  the  allied  armies  did  little  or  nothing.  The 
commissariat  system  and  the  land  transport  system  had 
broken  down.     The  armies  were  miserably  weakened  by 


584  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

sickness.  Cholera  was  ever  and  anon  raging  anew  among 
our  men.  Horses  and  mules  were  dying  of  cold  and  star- 
vation. The  roads  were  only  deep  irregular  ruts  filled 
with  mud;  the  camp  was  a  marsh;  the  tents  stood  often 
in  pools  of  water;  the  men  had  sometimes  no  beds  but 
straw  dripping  with  wet,  and  hardly  any  bed  coverings. 
Our  unfortunate  Turkish  allies  were  in  a  far  more  wretched 
plight  than  even  we  ourselves.  The  authorities,  who 
ought  to  have  looked  after  them,  were  impervious  to  the 
criticisms  of  special  correspondents,  and  unassailable  by 
Parliamentary  votes  of  censure.  A  condemnation  of  the 
latter  kind  was  hanging  over  our  Government.  Lord 
John  Russell  became  impressed  with  the  conviction  that 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  was  not  strong  enough  for  the  post 
of  War  Minister,  and  he  wrote  to  Lord  Aberdeen  urging 
that  the  War  Department  should  be  given  to  Lord  Palmer- 
ston.  Lord  Aberdeen  replied  that  although  another  per- 
son might  have  been  a  better  choice  when  the  appoint- 
ments were  made  in  the  first  instance,  yet  in  the  absence 
of  any  proved  defect  or  alleged  incapacity  there  was  no 
sufficient  ground  for  making  a  kind  of  speculative  change. 
Parliament  was  called  together  before  Christmas;  and 
after  the  Christmas  recess  Mr.  Roebuck  gave  notice  that 
he  would  move  for  a  select  committee  to  inquire  into  the 
condition  of  the  army  before  Sebastopol,  and  into  the 
conduct  of  those  departments  of  the  Government  whose 
duty  it  had  been  to  minister  to  the  wants  of  the  army. 
Lord  John  Russell  did  not  believe  for  himself  that  the 
motion  could  be  conscientiously  resisted;  but  as  it  neces- 
sarily involved  a  censure  upon  some  of  his  colleagues,  he 
did  not  think  he  ought  to  remain  longer  in  the  ministry, 
and  he  therefore  resigned  his  office.  The  sudden  resigna- 
tion of  the  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  a  death- 
blow to  any  plans  of  resistance  by  which  the  Government 
might  otherwise  have  thought  of  encountering  Mr.  Roe- 
buck's motion.  Lord  Palmerston,  although  Lord  John 
Russell's  course  was  a  marked  tribute  to  his  own  capacitj% 


The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.  585 

had  remonstrated  warmly  with  Russell  by  letter  as  to  his 
determination  to  resign.  "  You  will  have  the  appearance, " 
he  said,  "  of  having  remained  in  office  aiding  in  carrying 
on  a  system  of  \vhich  j'ou  disapprove  until  driven  out  by 
Roebuck's  announced  notice;  and  the  Government  will 
have  the  appearance  of  self-condemnation  by  flying  from 
a  discussion  which  they  dare  not  face;  while,  as  regards 
the  country,  the  action  of  the  executive  will  be  paralyzed 
for  a  time  in  a  critical  moment  of  a  great  war,  with  an  im- 
pending negotiation,  and  we  shall  exhibit  to  the  world  a 
melancholy  spectacle  of  disorganization  among  our  political 
men  at  home  similar  to  that  which  has  prevailed  among 
our  military  men  abroad."  The  remonstrance,  however, 
came  too  late,  even  if  it  could  have  had  any  effect  at  any 
time.  Mr.  Roebuck's  motion  came  on,  and  was  resisted 
with  vigor  by  Lord  Palmerston  and  Mr.  Gladstone.  Lord 
Palmerston  insisted  that  the  responsibility  ought  to  fall 
not  on  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  but  on  the  whole  cabinet; 
and  with  a  generosity  which  his  keenest  opponents  might 
have  admitted  to  be  characteristic  of  him,  he  accepted  the 
task  of  defending  an  Administration  whose  chief  blame 
was  in  the  eyes  of  most  persons  that  they  had  not  given 
the  control  of  the  war  into  his  hands.  Mr.  Gladstone  de- 
clared that  the  inquiry  sought  for  by  the  resolution  could 
lead  to  nothing  but  "  confusion  and  disturbance,  increased 
disasters,  shame  at  home  and  weakness  abroad;  it  would 
convey  no  consolation  to  those  whom  you  seek  to  aid,  but 
it  would  carry  malignant  joy  to  the  hearts  of  the  enemies 
of  England."  The  House  of  Commons  was  not  to  be 
moved  by  any  such  argument  or  appeal.  The  one  pervad- 
ing idea  was  that  England  had  been  endangered  and 
shamed  by  the  breakdown  of  her  arm}^  organization. 
When  the  division  took  place,  305  members  voted  for  Mr. 
Roebuck's  motion,  and  only  148  against.  The  majority 
against  ministers  was  therefore  157.  Every  one  knows 
what  a  scene  usually  takes  place  when  a  ministry  is  de- 
feated in  the  House  of  Commons— cheering  again   and 


586  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

again  renewed,  counter-cheers  of  defiance,  wild  exultation, 
vehement  indignation,  a  whole  whirlpool  of  various  emo- 
tions seething  in  that  little  hall  in  St.  Stephen's.  But 
this  time  there  was  no  such  outburst.  The  House  could 
hardly  realize  the  fact  that  the  ministry  of  all  the  talents 
had  been  thus  completely  and  ignominiousl}'  defeated.  A 
dead  silence  followed  the  announcement  of  the  numbers. 
Then  there  was  a  half-breathless  murmur  of  amazement 
and  incredulity.  The  Speaker  repeated  the  numbers,  and 
doubt  was  over.  It  was  still  uncertain  how  the  House 
would  express  its  feelings.  Suddenly  some  one  laughed. 
The  sound  gave  a  direction  and  a  relief  to  perplexed,  pent- 
up  emotion.  Shouts  of  laughter  followed.  Not  merely 
the  pledged  opponents  of  the  Government  laughed ;  many 
of  those  who  had  voted  with  ministers  found  themselves 
laughing  too.  It  seemed  so  absurd,  so  incongruous,  this 
way  of  disposing  of  the  great  Coalition  Government.  Many 
must  have  thought  of  the  night  of  fierce  debate,  little  more 
than  two  years  before,  when  Mr.  Disraeli,  then  on  the 
verge  of  his  fall  from  power,  and  realizing  fully  the 
strength  of  the  combination  against  him,  consoled  his  party 
and  himself  for  the  imminent  fatality  awaiting  them  by 
the  defiant  words,  "I  know  that  I  have  to  face  a  Coalition; 
the  combination  may  be  successful.  A  combination  has 
before  this  been  successful ;  but  coalitions,  though  they 
may  be  successful,  have  always  found  that  their  triumphs 
have  been  brief.  This  I  know,  that  England  does  not 
love  coalitions. "  Only  two  years  had  passed  and  the  great 
Coalition  had  fallen,  overwhelmed  with  reproach  and  pop- 
ular indignation,  and  amid  sudden  shouts  of  laughter. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

THE    CLOSE    OF    THE    WAR. 

On  February  15th,  1855,  Lord  Palmerston  wrote  to  his 
brother:  "A  month  ago,  if  any  man  had  asked  me  to  say 
what  was  one  of  the  most  improbable  events,  I  should 
have  said  my  being  Prime-minister.  Aberdeen  was  there ; 
Derby  was  head  of  one  great  party,  John  Russell  of  the 
other,  and  yet  in  about  ten  days'  time  they  all  gave  way 
like  straws  before  the  wind ;  and  so  here  am  I,  writing  to 
you  from  Downing  Street,  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury." 

No  doubt  Lord  Palmerston  was  sincere  in  the  expres- 
sion of  surprise  which  we  have  quoted;  but  there  were 
not  many  other  men  in  the  country  who  felt  in  the  least 
astonished  at  the  turn  of  events  by  which  he  had  become 
Prime-minister.  Indeed,  it  had  long  become  apparent  to 
almost  every  one  that  his  assuming  that  place  was  only  a 
question  of  time.  The  country  was  in  that  mood  that  it 
would  absolutely  have  somebody  at  the  head  of  affairs 
who  knew  his  own  mind  and  saw  his  way  clearly  before 
him.  When  the  Coalition  Ministry  broke  down.  Lord 
Derby  was  invited  by  the  Queen  to  form  a  Government. 
He  tried,  and  failed.  He  did  all  in  his  power  to  accom- 
plish the  task  with  which  the  Queen  had  intrusted  him. 
He  invited  Lord  Palmerston  to  join  him,  and  it  was  inti- 
mated that  if  Palmerston  consented  Mr.  Disraeli  would 
waive  all  claim  to  the  leadership  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
in  order  that  Palmerston  should  have  that  place.  Lord 
Derby  also  offered,  through  Lord  Palmerston,  places  in 
his  administration  to  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Sidney  Her- 
bert. Palmerston  did  not  see  his  way  to  join  a  Derby 
Administration,  and  without  him  Lord  Derby  could  not 


588  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

go  on.  The  Queen  then  sent  for  Lord  John  Russell;  but 
Russell's  late  and  precipitate  retreat  from  his  office  had 
discredited  him  with  most  of  his  former  colleagues,  and 
he  found  that  he  could  not  get  a  Government  together. 
Lord  Palmerston  was  then,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  Vine'vi- 
table.  There  was  not  much  change  in  the  personnel  of  the 
ministr)'.  Lord  Aberdeen  was  gone,  and  Lord  Palmerston 
took  his  place;  and  Lord  Panmure,  who  had  formerly,  as 
Fox  Maule,  administered  the  affairs  of  the  army,  succeeded 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  Lord  Panmure,  however,  com- 
bined in  his  own  person  the  functions,  up  to  that  time  ab- 
surdly separated,  of  Secretary  at  War  and  Secretary  for 
War.  The  Secretary  at  War  under  the  old  system  was 
not  one  of  the  principal  Secretaries  of  State.  He  was 
merely  the  officer  by  whom  the  regular  communication 
was  kept  up  between  the  War-office  and  the  ministry,  and 
has  been  described  as  the  civil  officer  of  the  army.  The 
Secretary  for  War  was  commonly  intrusted  with  the  colo- 
nial departm.ent  as  well.  The  two  War-offices  were  now 
made  into  one.  It  was  hoped  that  by  this  change  great 
benefit  would  come  to  our  whole  array  system.  Lord  Palm- 
erston acted  energetically,  too,  in  sending  out  a  sanitary 
commission  to  the  Crimea,  and  a  commission  to  superin- 
tend the  commissariat,  a  department  that,  almost  more 
than  any  other,  had  broken  down.  Nothing  could  be 
more  strenuous  than  the  terms  in  which  Lord  Palmerston 
recommended  the  sanitary  commission  to  Lord  Raglan. 
He  requested  that  Lord  Raglan  would  give  the  commis- 
sioners every  assistance  in  his  power.  "  They  will,  of 
course,  be  opposed  and  thwarted  by  the  medical  officers, 
by  the  men  who  have  charge  of  the  port  arrangements, 
and  by  those  who  have  the  cleaning  of  the  camp.  Their 
mission  will  be  ridiculed,  and  their  recommendations  and 
directions  set  aside,  unless  enforced  by  the  peremptory 
exercise  of  your  authority.  But  that  authority  I  must  re- 
quest you  to  exert  in  the  most  peremptory  manner  for  the 
immediate  and   exact  carrying  into   execution  whatever 


The  Close  of  the  War,  589 

changes  of  arrangement  they  may  recommend ;  for  these 
are  matters  on  which  depend  the  health  and  lives  of  many 
hundreds  of  men,  I  may,  indeed,  say  of  thousands."  Lord 
Palmerston  was  strongly  pressed  by  some  of  the  more 
strenuous  Reformers  of  the  House.  Mr.  Layard,  who  had 
acquired  some  celebrity  before  in  a  very  different  field — 
as  a  discoverer,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  ruins  of  Nineveh  and 
Babylon — was  energetic  and  incessant  in  his  attacks  on  the 
administration  of  the  war,  and  was  not  disposed  even  now 
to  give  the  new  Government  a  moment's  rest.  Mr.  Layard 
was  a  man  of  a  certain  rough  ability,  immense  self-suffi- 
ciency, and  indomitable  egotism.  He  was  not  in  any  sense 
an  eloquent  speaker;  he  was  singularly  wanting  in  all  the 
graces  of  style  and  manner.  But  he  was  fluent,  he  was 
vociferous,  he  never  seemed  to  have  a  moment's  doubt  on 
any  conceivable  question,  he  never  admitted  that  there 
could  by  any  possibility  be  two  sides  to  any  matter  of  dis- 
cussion. He  did  really  know  a  great  deal  about  the  East 
at  a  time  when  the  habit  of  travelling  in  the  East  was 
comparatively  rare.  He  stamped  down  all  doubt  or  dif- 
ference of  view  with  the  overbearing  dogmatism  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  Touchwood,  or  of  the  proverbial  man  who 
has  been  there  and  ought  to  know;  and  he  was  in  many 
respects  admirably  fitted  to  be  the  spokesman  of  all  those, 
and  they  were  not  a  few,  who  saw  that  things  had  been 
going  wrong  without  exactly  seeing  why,  and  were  eager 
that  something  should  be  done,  although  they  did  not 
clearly  know  what.  Lord  Palmerston  strove  to  induce 
the  House  not  to  press  for  the  appointment  of  the  com- 
mittee recommended  in  Mr.  Roebuck's  motion.  The 
Government,  he  said,  would  make  the  needful  inquiries 
themselves.  He  reminded  the  House  of  Richard  II.  's 
offer  to  lead  the  men  of  the  fallen  Tyler's  insurrection 
himself;  and  in  the  same  spirit  he  oflfered,  on  the  part  of 
the  Government,  to  take  the  lead  in  every  necessary  in- 
vestigation. Mr.  Roebuck,  however,  would  not  give  way ; 
and  Lord  Palmerston  yielded  to  a  demand  which  had,  un- 


590  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

doiibtedly,  the  support  of  a  vast  force  of  public  opinion. 
The  constant  argument  of  Mr.  Layard  had  some  sense  in 
it :  the  Government  now  in  office  was  very  much  like  the 
Government  in  which  the  House  had  declared  so  lately 
that  it  had  no  confidence.  It  could  hardly,  therefore,  be 
expected  that  the  House  should  accept  its  existence  as 
guarantee  enough  that  everything  should  be  done  which 
its  predecessor  had  failed  to  do.  Lord  Palmerston  gave 
way,  but  his  unavoidable  concession  brought  on  a  new 
ministerial  crisis.  Sir  James  Graham,  Mr.  Gladstone, 
and  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert  declined  to  hold  office  any  longer. 
They  had  opposed  the  motion  for  an  inquiry  most  gravely 
and  strenuously,  and  they  would  not  lend  any  countenance 
to  it  by  remaining  in  office.  Sir  Charles  Wood  succeeded 
Sir  James  Graham  as  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty;  Lord 
John  Russell  took  the  place  of  Secretary  of  the  Colonies, 
vacated  by  Sidney  Herbert;  and  Sir  George  Cornewall 
Lewis  followed  Mr.  Gladstone  as  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. 

Meanwhile  new  negotiations  for  peace,  set  on  foot  under 
the  influence  of  Austria,  had  been  begun  at  Vienna,  and 
Lord  John  Russell  had  been  sent  there  to  represent  the 
interests  of  England.  The  Conference  opened  at  Vienna 
imder  circumstances  that  might  have  seemed  especially 
favorable  to  peace.  We  had  got  a  new  ally,  a  State  not, 
indeed,  commanding  any  great  military  strength,  but  full 
of  energy  and  ambition,  and  representing  more  than  any 
other,  perhaps,  the  tendencies  of  liberalism  and  the  opera- 
tion of  the  comparatively  new  principle  of  the  rights  of 
nationalities.  This  was  the  little  kingdom  of  Sardinia, 
whose  government  was  then  under  the  control  of  one  of 
the  master-spirits  of  modern  politics;  a  man  who  belonged 
to  the  class  of  the  Richelieus  and  the  Orange  Williams — 
the  illustrious  Count  Cavour.  Sardinia,  it  may  be  frankly 
said,  did  not  come  into  the  alliance  because  of  any  particu- 
lar sympathies  that  she  had  with  one  side  or  the  other  of 
the  quarrel  between  Russia  and  the  Western  Powers.     She 


The  Close  of  the  War.  591 

went  into  the  war  in  order  that  she  might  have  a  locus 
standi  in  the  councils  of  Europe  from  which  to  set  forth 
her  grievances  against  Austria.  In  the  marvellous  history 
of  the  uprise  of  the  kingdom  of  Italy  there  is  a  good  deal 
over  which,  to  use  the  words  of  Carlyle,  moralities  not  a 
few  must  shriek  aloud.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  defend  on 
high  moral  principles  the  policy  which  struck  into  a  war 
without  any  particular  care  for  either  side  of  the  contro- 
versy, but  only  to  serve  an  ulterior  and  personal,  that  is  to 
say,  national  purpose.  But,  regarding  the  policy  merely 
by  the  light  of  its  results,  it  must  be  owned  that  it  was 
singularly  successful,  and  entirely  justified  the  expecta- 
tions of  Cavour.  The  Crimean  War  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  kingdom  of  Italy. 

That  was  one  fact  calculated  to  inspire  hopes  of  a  peace. 
The  greater  the  number  and  strength  of  the  allies,  the 
greater,  obviously,  the  pressure  upon  Russia  and  the  prob- 
ability of  her  listening  to  reason.  But  there  was  another 
event  of  a  very  different  nature,  the  effect  of  which  seemed 
at  first  likely  to  be  all  in  favor  of  peace.  This  was  the 
death  of  the  man  whom  the  united  public  opinion  of  Europe 
regarded  as  the  author  of  the  war.  On  March  2d,  1855, 
the  Emperor  Nicholas  of  Russia  died  of  pulmonary  apo- 
plexy, after  an  attack  of  influenza.  In  other  days  it  would 
have  been  said  he  had  died  of  a  broken  heart.  Perhaps 
the  description  would  have  been  more  strictly  true  than 
the  terms  of  the  medical  report.  It  was  doubtless  the 
effect  of  utter  disappointment,  of  the  wreck  and  ruin  of 
hopes  to  which  a  life's  ambition  had  been  directed  and  a 
life's  energy  dedicated,  which  left  that  frame  of  adamant 
open  to  the  sudden  dart  of  sickness.  One  of  the  most  re- 
markable illustrations  of  an  artist's  genius  devoted  to  a 
political  subject  was  the  cartoon  which  appeared  in  Punchy 
and  which  was  called  "  General  Fevrier  turned  Traitor," 
The  Emperor  Nicholas  had  boasted  that  Russia  had  two 
generals  on  whom  she  could  always  rely,  General  Janvier 
and  General  Fevrier;  and  now  the  English  artist  repre- 


592  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

sented  General  February,  a  skeleton  in  Russian  uniform, 
turning  traitor,  and  laying  his  bony  ice-cold  hand  on  the 
heart  of  the  Sovereign  and  betraying  him  to  the  tomb. 
But,  indeed,  it  was  not  General  February  alone  who 
doomed  Nicholas  to  death.  The  Czar  died  of  broken 
hopes;  of  the  recklessness  that  comes  from  defeat  and  de- 
spair. He  took  no  precautions  against  cold  and  exposure ; 
he  treated  with  a  magnanimous  disdain  the  remonstrances 
of  his  physicians  and  his  friends.  As  of  Max  Piccolomini 
in  Schiller's  noble  play,  so  of  him :  men  whispered  that 
he  wished  to  die.  The  Alma  was  to  him  what  Austerlitz 
was  to  Pitt.  From  the  moment  when  the  news  of  that  de- 
feat was  announced  to  him  he  no  longer  seemed  to  have 
hope  of  the  campaign.  He  took  the  story  of  the  defeat 
very  much  as  Lord  North  took  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis 
■ — as  if  a  bullet  had  struck  him.  Thenceforth  he  was  like 
one  whom  the  old  Scotch  phrase  would  describe  as  fey — 
one  who  moved,  spoke,  and  lived  under  the  shadow  of 
coming  death  until  the  death  came. 

The  news  of  the  sudden  death  of  the  Emperor  created  a 
profound  sensation  in  England.  Mr.  Bright,  at  Manchester, 
shortly  after  rebuked  what  he  considered  an  ignoble  levity 
in  the  manner  of  commenting  on  the  event  among  some 
of  the  English  journals;  but  it  is  right  to  say  that,  on  the 
whole,  nothing  could  have  been  more  decorous  and  dig- 
nified than  the  manner  in  which  the  English  public  gen- 
erally received  the  news  that  the  country's  great  enemy 
was  no  more.  At  first  there  was,  as  we  have  said,  a  com- 
mon impression  that  Nicholas'  son  and  successor,  Alex- 
ander n.,  would  be  more  anxious  to  make  peace  than  his 
father  had  been.  But  this  hope  was  soon  gone.  The  new 
Czar  could  not  venture  to  show  himself  to  his  people  in  a 
less  patriotic  light  than  his  predecessor.  The  prospects 
of  the  allies  were  at  the  time  remarkably  gloomy.  There 
must  have  seemed  to  the  new  Russian  Emperor  consider- 
able ground  for  the  hope  that  disease,  and  cold,  and  bad 
management  would  do  more  harm  to  the  army  of  England, 


The  Close  of  the  War.  59^ 

at  least,  than  any  Russian  general  could  do.  The  Confer- 
ence at  Vienna  proved  a  failure,  and  even  in  some  respects 
Q.  fiasco.  Lord  John  Russell,  sent  to  Vienna  as  our  repre- 
sentative, was  instructed  that  the  object  he  must  hold  in 
view  was  the  admission  of  Turkey  into  the  great  family  of 
European  States.  For  this  end  there  were  four  principal 
points  to  be  considered — the  condition  of  the  Danubian 
Principalities,  the  free  navigation  of  the  Danube,  the 
limitation  of  Russian  supremacy  in  the  Black  Sea,  and  the 
independence  of  the  Porte.  It  was  on  the  attempt  to  limit 
Russian  supremacy  in  the  Black  Sea  that  the  negotiations 
became  a  failure.  Russia  would  not  consent  to  any  pro- 
posal which  could  really  have  the  desired  effect.  She 
would  agree  to  an  arrangement  between  Turkey  and  her- 
self, but  that  was  exactly  what  the  Western  Powers  were 
determined  not  to  allow.  She  declined  to  have  the  strength 
of  her  navy  restricted ;  and  proposed  as  a  counter-resolu- 
tion that  the  Straits  should  be  opened  to  the  war  flags  of 
all  nations,  so  that  if  Russia  were  strong  as  a  naval  Power 
in  the  Black  Sea,  other  Powers  might  be  just  as  strong  if 
they  thought  fit.  Lord  Palmerston,  in  a  letter  to  Lord 
John  Russell,  dryly  characterized  this  proposition,  involv- 
ing as  it  would  the  maintenance  by  England  and  France 
of  permanent  fleets  in  the  Black  Sea  to  counterbalance  the 
fleet  of  Russia,  as  a  "  mauvaise  plaisa7iterie. "  Lord  Palmer- 
ston, indeed,  believed  no  more  in  the  sincerity  of  Austria 
throughout  all  these  transactions  than  he  did  in  that  of 
Russia.  The  Conference  proved  a  total  failure,  and  in  its 
failure  it  involved  a  good  deal  of  the  reputation  of  Lord 
John  Russell.  Like  the  French  representative,  M.  Drouyn 
de  Lhuys,  Lord  John  Russell  had  been  taken  by  the  pro- 
posals of  Austria,  and  had  supported  them  in  the  first  in- 
stance; but  when  the  Government  at  home  would  not  have 
them,  he  was  still  induced  to  remain  a  member  of  the 
Cabinet,  and  even  to  condemn  in  the  House  of  Commons 
the  recommendations  he  had  supported  at  Vienna.  He 
was  charged  by  Mr.  Disraeli  with  having  encouraged  the 
Vol.  I.— 38 


594  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Russian  pretensions  by  declaring  at  a  critical  point  of  the 
negotiations  that  he  was  disposed  to  favor  whatever  ar- 
rangement would  best  preserve  the  honor  of  Russia. 
"What  has  the  representative  of  England,"  Mr.  Disraeli 
indignantly  asked,  "to  do  with  the  honor  of  Russia?"  Lord 
John  had,  indeed,  a  fair  reply.  He  could  say  with  justice 
and  good-sense  that  no  settlement  was  likely  to  be  lasting 
which  simply  forced  conditions  upon  a  great  Power  like 
Russia  without  taking  any  account  of  what  is  considered 
among  nations  to  be  her  honor.  But  he  was  not  able  to 
give  any  satisfactory  explanation  of  his  having  approved 
the  conditions  in  Vienna  which  he  afterward  condemned 
in  Westminster.  He  explained  in  Parliament  that  he  did, 
in  the  first  instance,  regard  the  Austrian  propositions  as 
containing  the  possible  basis  of  a  satisfactory  and  lasting 
peace;  but  that,  as  the  Government  would  not  hear  of 
them,  he  had  rejected  them  against  his  own  judgment ;  and 
that  he  had  afterward  been  converted  to  the  opinion  of  his 
colleagues  and  believed  them  inadmissible  in  principle. 
This  was  a  sort  of  explanation  more  likely  to  alarm  than 
to  reassure  the  public.  What  manner  of  danger,  it  was 
asked  on  all  sides,  may  we  not  be  placed  in  when  our  rep- 
resentatives do  not  know  their  own  minds  as  to  proper 
terms  of  peace ;  when  they  have  no  opinion  of  their  own 
upon  the  subject,  but  are  loud  in  approval  of  certain  con- 
ditions one  day  which  they  are  equally  loud  in  condemn- 
ing the  next?  There  was  a  general  impression  through- 
out England  that  some  of  our  statesmen  in  office  had  never 
been  sincerely  in  favor  of  the  war  from  the  first ;  that  even 
still  they  were  cold,  doubtful,  and  half-hearted  about  it, 
and  that  the  honor  of  the  country  was  not  safe  in  such 
hands.  The  popular  instinct,  whether  it  was  right  as  to 
facts  or  not,  was  perfectly  sound  as  to  inferences.  We 
may  honor,  in  many  instances  we  must  honor,  the  con- 
scientious scruples  of  a  public  man  who  distrusts  the  ob- 
jects and  has  no  faith  in  the  results  of  some  war  in  which 
his  people  are  engaged.     But  such  a  man  has  no  business 


The  Close  of  the  War.  595 

in  the  Government  which  has  the  conduct  of  the  war.  The 
men  who  are  to  carry  on  a  war  must  have  no  doubt  of  its 
rightfulness  of  purpose,  and  must  not  be  eager  to  conclude 
it  on  any  terms.  In  the  very  interests  of  peace  itself  they 
must  be  resolute  to  carry  on  the  war  until  it  has  reached 
the  end  they  sought  for. 

Lord  John  Russell's  remaining  in  office  after  these  dis- 
closures was  practically  impossible.  Sir  E.  B.  Lytton 
gave  notice  of  a  direct  vote  of  censure  on  "  the  minister 
charged  with  the  negotiations  at  Vienna."  But  Russell 
anticipated  the  certain  effect  of  a  vote  in  the  House  of 
Commons  by  resigning  his  office.  This  step,  at  least,  ex- 
tricated his  colleagues  from  any  share  in  the  censure,  al- 
though the  recriminations  that  passed  on  the  occasion  in 
Parliament  were  many  and  bitter.  The  vote  of  censure 
was,  however,  withdrawn.  Sir  William  Molesworth,  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  school  who  were  since 
called  Philosophical  Radicals,  succeeded  him  as  Colonial 
Secretary;  and  the  ministry  carried  one  or  two  triumphant 
votes  against  Mr.  Disraeli,  Mr.  Roebuck,  and  other  op- 
ponents, or  at  least  unfriendly  critics.  Meanwhile  the 
Emperor  of  the  French  and  his  wife  had  paid  a  visit  to 
London,  and  had  been  received  with  considerable  enthusi- 
asm. The  Queen  seems  to  have  been  very  favorably  im- 
pressed by  the  Emperor.  She  sincerely  admired  him,  and 
believed  in  his  desire  to  maintain  peace  as  far  as  possible, 
and  to  do  his  best  for  the  promotion  of  liberal  principles 
and  sound  economic  doctrines  throughout  Europe.  The 
beauty  and  grace  of  the  Empress  likewise  greatly  won 
over  Queen  Victoria.  The  Prince  Consort  seems  to  have 
been  less  impressed.  He  was,  indeed,  a  believer  in  the 
sincerity  and  good  disposition  of  the  Emperor,  but  he 
found  him  strangely  ignorant  on  most  subjects,  even  the 
modem  political  history  of  England  and  France.  During 
the  visit  of  the  Royal  family  of  England  to  France,  and 
now  while  the  Emperor  and  Empress  were  in  London,  the 
same  impression  appears  to  have  been  left  on  the  mind  of 


59^  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  Prince  Consort.  He  also  seems  to  have  noticed  a  cer- 
tain barrack -room  flavor  about  the  Emperor's  entourage 
which  was  not  agreeable  to  his  own  ideas  of  dignity  and 
refinement.  The  Prince  Consort  appears  to  have  judged 
the  Emperor  almost  exactly  as  we  know  now  that  Prince 
Bismarck  did  then,  and  as  impartial  opinion  has  judged 
him  everywhere  in  Europe  since  that  time. 

The  operations  in  the  Crimea  were  renewed  with  some 
vigor.  The  English  army  lost  much  by  the  death  of  ita 
brave  and  manly  commander-in-chief,  Lord  Raglan.  He 
was  succeeded  by  General  Simpson,  who  had  recently  been 
sent  out  to  the  Crimea  as  chief  of  the  staff,  and  whose  ad- 
ministration during  the  short  time  that  he  held  the  com- 
mand was  at  least  well  qualified  to  keep  Lord  Raglan's 
memory  green,  and  to  prevent  the  regret  for  his  death 
from  losing  any  of  its  keenness.  The  French  army  had 
lost  its  first  commander  long  before — the  versatile,  reck- 
less, brilliant  soldier  of  fortune,  St.  Arnaud,  whose  broken 
health  had  from  the  opening  of  the  campaign  prevented 
him  from  displaying  any  of  the  qualities  which  his  earlier 
career  gave  men  reason  to  look  for  under  his  command. 
After  St.  Arnaud's  death  the  command  was  transferred 
for  awhile  to  General  Canrobert,  who,  finding  himself 
hardly  equal  to  the  task,  resigned  it  in  favor  of  General 
Pelissier.  The  Sardinian  contingent  had  arrived,  and  had 
given  admirable  proof  of  its  courage  and  discipline.  On 
August  i6th,  1855,  the  Russians,  under  General  Liprandi, 
made  a  desperate  effort  to  raise  the  siege  of  Sebastopol  by 
an  attack  on  the  allied  forces.  The  attack  was  skilfully 
planned  during  the  night,  and  was  made  in  great  strength. 
The  French  divisions  had  to  bear  the  principal  weight  of 
the  attack;  but  the  Sardinian  contingent  also  had  a 
prominent  place  in  the  resistance,  and  bore  themselves 
with  splendid  bravery  and  success.  The  attempt  of  the 
Russians  was  completely  foiled;  and  all  Northern  Italy 
was  thrown  into  wild  delight  by  the  news  that  the  flag  of 
Piedmont  had  been  carried  to  victory  over  the  troops  of 


The  Close  of  the  War.  597 

one  great  European  Power,  and  side  by  side  with  those  of 
two  others.  The  unanimous  voice  of^the  country  now  ap- 
proved and  acclaimed  the  policy  of  Cavour,  which  had 
been  sanctioned  only  by  a  very  narrow  majority,  had  been 
denounced  from  all  sides  as  reckless  and  senseless,  and 
had  been  carried  out  in  the  face  of  the  most  tremendous 
difficulties.  It  was  the  first  great  illustration  of  Cavour's 
habitual  policy  of  blended  audacity  and  cool,  far-seeing 
judgment.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  suggestion  to  send 
Sardinian  troops  to  the  Crimea  did  not  originate  in  Ca- 
vour's own  busy  brain.  The  first  thought  of  it  came  up  in 
the  mind  of  a  woman,  Cavour's  niece.  The  great  states- 
man was  struck  with  the  idea  from  the  moment  when  she 
suggested  it.  He  thought  over  it  deeply,  resolved  to 
adopt  it,  and  carried  it  to  triumphant  success. 

The  repulse  of  the  Tchernaya  was  a  heavy,  indeed  a 
fatal,  stroke  for  the  Russians.  The  siege  had  been  pro- 
gressing for  some  time  with  considerable  activity.  The 
French  had  drawn  their  lines  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  be- 
sieged city.  The  Russians,  however,  had  also  been  throw- 
ing up  fresh  works,  which  brought  them  nearer  to  the  lines 
of  the  allies,  and  sometimes  made  the  latter  seem  as  if 
they  were  the  besieged  rather  than  the  besiegers.  The 
Malakoff  tower  and  the  Mamelon  battery  in  front  of  it  be- 
came the  scenes  and  the  objects  of  constant  struggle.  The 
Russians  made  desperate  night  sorties  again  and  again, 
and  were  always  repulsed.  On  June  7th  the  English  as- 
saulted the  quarries  in  front  of  the  Redan,  and  the  French 
attacked  the  Mamelon.  The  attack  on  both  sides  was  suc- 
cessful; but  it  was  followed  on  the  1 8th  of  the  same  month 
by  a  desperate  and  wholly  unsuccessful  attack  on  the  Re- 
dan and  Malakoff  batteries.  There  was  some  misappre- 
hension on  the  side  of  the  French  commander,  which  led 
to  a  lack  of  precision  and  unity  in  the  carrying  out  of  the 
enterprise,  and  it  became,  therefore,  a  failure  on  the  part 
of  both  the  allies.  A  pompous  and  exulting  address  was 
issued  by  Prince  Gortschakoff,  in  which  he  informed  the 


59^  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Russian  army  that  the  enemy  had  been  beaten,  driven 
back  with  enormous  loss;  and  announced  that  the  hour 
was  approaching  "  when  the  pride  of  the  enemy  will  be 
lowered,  their  armies  swept  from  our  soil  like  chaff  blown 
away  by  the  wind." 

On  September  5th  the  allies  made  an  attack  almost 
simultaneously  upon  the  Malakoff  and  the  Redan.  It  was 
agreed  that  as  soon  as  the  French  had  got  possession  of 
the  Malakoff  the  English  should  attack  the  Redan,  the 
hoisting  of  the  French  flag  on  the  former  fort  to  be  the 
signal  for  our  men  to  move.  The  French  were  brilliantly 
successful  in  their  part  of  the  attack,  and  in  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  from  the  beginning  of  the  attempt  the  flag  of  the 
empire  was  floating  on  the  parapets.  The  English  then 
at  once  advanced  upon  the  Redan ;  but  it  was  a  very  dif- 
ferent task  from  that  which  the  French  had  had  to  under- 
take. The  French  were  near  the  Malakoff;  the  English 
were  very  far  away  from  the  Redan.  The  distance  our 
soldiers  had  to  traverse  left  them  almost  helplessly  ex- 
posed to  the  Russian  fire.  They  stormed  the  parapets  of 
the  Redan  despite  all  the  difficulties  of  their  attack;  but 
they  were  not  able  to  hold  the  place.  The  attacking  party 
was  far  too  small  in  numbers;  reinforcements  did  not 
come  in  time ;  the  English  held  their  own  for  an  hour 
against  odds  that  might  have  seemed  overwhelming;  but 
it  was  simply  impossible  for  them  to  establish  themselves 
in  the  Redan,  and  the  remnant  of  them  that  could  with- 
draw had  to  retreat  to  the  trenches.  It  was  only  the  old 
story  of  the  war.  Superb  courage  and  skill  of  officers  and 
men;  outrageously  bad  generalship.  The  attack  might 
have  been  renewed  that  day,  but  the  English  commander- 
in-chief.  General  Simpson,  declared  with  naivete  that  the 
trenches  were  too  crowded  for  him  to  do  anything.  Thus 
the  attack  failed  because  there  were  too  few  men,  and 
could  not  be  renewed  because  there  were  too  many.  The 
cautious  commander  resolved  to  make  another  attempt  the 
next  morning.     But  before  the  morrow  came  there  was 


The  Close  of  the  War.  599 

nothing  to  attack.  The  Russians  withdrew  during  the 
night  from  the  south  side  of  Sebastopol.  A  bridge  of 
boats  had  been  constructed  across  the  bay  to  connect  the 
north  and  the  south  sides  of  the  city,  and  across  this  bridge 
Prince  Gortschakoff  quietly  withdrew  his  troops.  The 
bombardment  kept  up  by  the  allies  had  been  so  terrible 
and  so  close  for  several  days,  and  their  long-range  guns 
were  so  entirely  superior  to  anj^thing  possessed  by  or,  in- 
deed, known  to  the  Russians,  that  the  defences  of  the 
south  side  were  being  irreparably  destroyed.  The  Rus- 
sian general  felt  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to 
hold  the  city  much  longer,  and  that  to  remain  there  was 
only  useless  waste  of  life.  But,  as  he  said  in  his  own  dis- 
patch, "it  is  not  Sebastopol  which  we  have  left  to  them, 
but  the  burning  ruins  of  the  town,  which  we  ourselves  set 
fire  to,  having  maintained  the  honor  of  the  defence  in  such 
a  manner  that  our  great-grandchildren  may  recall  with 
pride  the  remembrance  of  it  and  send  it  on  to  all  poster- 
ity."  It  was  some  time  before  the  allies  could  venture  to 
enter  the  abandoned  city.  The  arsenals  and  powder- 
magazines  were  exploding,  the  flames  were  bursting  out 
of  every  public  building  and  every  private  house.  The 
Russians  had  made  of  Sebastopol  another  Moscow. 

With  the  close  of  that  long  siege,  which  had  lasted 
nearly  a  year,  the  war  may  be  said  to  have  ended.  The 
brilliant  episode  of  Kars,  its  splendid  defence  and  its  final 
surrender,  was  brought  to  its  conclusion,  indeed,  after  the 
fall  of  Sebastopol ;  but,  although  it  naturally  attracted 
peculiar  attention  in  this  country,  it  could  have  no  effect 
on  the  actual  fortunes  of  such  a  war.  Kars  was  defended 
by  Colonel  Fenwick  Williams,  an  English  officer,  who  had 
been  sent,  all  too  late,  to  reorganize  the  Turkish  forces  in 
Armenia  after  they  had  suffered  a  terrible  defeat  at  the 
hands  of  the  Russians.  Never,  probably,  had  a  man  a 
more  difficult  task  than  that  which  fell  to  the  lot  of  Wil- 
liams. He  had  to  contend  against  official  stupidity,  corrup- 
tion, delay;  he  could  get  nothing  done  without  having 


6oo  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

first  to  remove  whole  mountains  of  obstruction,  and  to 
quicken  into  life  and  movement  an  apathy  which  seemed 
like  that  of  a  paralyzed  system.  He  concentrated  his 
efforts  at  last  upon  the  defence  of  Kars,  and  he  held  the 
place  against  overwhelming  Russian  forces,  and  against 
an  enemy  far  more  appalling,  starvation  itself.  With  his 
little  garrison  he  repelled  a  tremendous  attack  of  the  Rus- 
sian army  under  General  Mouravieff ,  in  a  battle  that  lasted 
nearly  seven  hours,  and  as  the  result  of  which  the  Russians 
left  on  the  field  more  than  five  thousand  dead.  He  had 
to  surrender  at  last  to  famine;  but  the  very  articles  of  sur- 
render to  which  the  conqueror  consented  became  the 
trophy  of  Williams  and  his  men.  The  garrison  were  al- 
lowed to  leave  the  place  with  all  the  honors  of  war ;  and, 
"  as  a  testimony  to  the  valorous  resistance  made  by  the 
garrison  of  Kars,  the  officers  of  all  ranks  are  to  keep  their 
swords."  Williams  and  his  English  companions— Colonel 
Lake,  Major  Teesdale,  Major  Thompson,  and  Dr.  Sand- 
with— had  done  as  much  for  the  honor  of  their  country  at 
the  close  of  the  war  as  Butler  and  Nasmyth  had  done  at 
its  opening.  The  curtain  of  that  great  drama  rose  and 
fell  upon  a  splendid  scene  of  English  heroism. 

The  war  was  virtually  over.  Austria  had  been  exerting 
herself  throughout  its  progress  in  the  interests  of  peace, 
and  after  the  fall  of  Sebastopol  she  made  a  new  effort  with 
greater  success.  Two  of  the  belligerents  were,  indeed, 
now  anxious  to  be  out  of  the  struggle  almost  on  any  terms. 
These  were  France  and  Russia.  The  new  Emperor  of 
Russia  was  not  a  man  personally  inclined  for  war;  nor 
had  he  his  father's  overbearing  and  indomitable  temper. 
He  could  not  but  see  that  his  father  had  greatly  overrated 
the  military  strength  and  resources  of  his  country.  He 
had  accepted  the  war  only  as  a  heritage  of  necessary  evil, 
with  little  hope  of  any  good  to  come  of  it  to  Russia;  and 
he  welcomed  any  chance  of  ending  it  on  fair  terms. 
France,  or  at  least  her  Emperor,  was  all  but  determined 
to  get  back  again  into  peace.     If  England  had  held  out,  it 


The  Close  of  the  War.  60 1 

is  highly  probable  that  she  would  have  had  to  do  so  alone. 
For  this,  indeed,  Lord  Palmerston  was  fully  prepared  as  a 
last  resource,  sooner  than  submit  to  terms  which  he  con- 
sidered unsatisfactory.  He  said  so,  and  he  meant  it.  "  I 
can  fancy,"  Lord  Palmerston  wrote  to  Lord  Clarendon  in 
his  bright,  good-humored  way,  "  how  I  should  be  hooted  in 
the  House  of  Commons  if  I  were  to  get  up  and  say  that 
we  had  agreed  to  an  imperfect  and  unsatisfactory  arrange- 
ment. ...  I  had  better  beforehand  take  the  Chiltern 
Hundreds."  Lord  Palmerston,  however,  had  no  occasion 
to  take  the  Chiltern  Hundreds;  the  Congress  of  Paris 
opened  on  February  26th,  1856,  and  on  March  30th  the 
treaty  of  peace  was  signed  by  the  plenipotentiaries  of  the 
Great  Powers.  Prussia  had  been  admitted  to  the  Con- 
gress, which  therefore  represented  England,  France, 
Austria,  Prussia,  Turkey,  and  Sardinia. 

The  treaty  began  by  declaring  that  Kars  was  to  be  re- 
stored to  the  Sultan,  and  that  Sebastopol  and  all  other 
places  taken  by  the  allies  were  to  be  given  back  to  Russia. 
The  Sublime  Porte  was  admitted  to  participate  in  all  the 
advantages  of  the  public  law  and  system  of  Europe.  The 
other  Powers  engaged  to  respect  the  independence  and 
territorial  integrity  of  Turkey.  They  guaranteed  in  com- 
mon the  strict  observance  of  that  engagement,  and  an- 
nounced that  they  would  in  consequence  consider  any  act 
tending  to  a  violation  of  it  as  a  question  of  general  inter- 
est. The  Sultan  issued  a  firman  for  ameliorating  the 
condition  of  his  Christian  subjects,  and  communicated  to 
the  other  Powers  the  purposes  of  the  firman  "  emanating 
spontaneously  from  his  sovereign  will."  No  right  of 
interference,  it  was  distinctly  specified,  was  given  to  the 
other  Powers  by  this  concession  on  the  Sultan's  part.  The 
article  of  the  treaty  which  referred  to  the  Black  Sea  is  of 
especial  importance.  "The  Black  Sea  is  neutralized;  its 
waters  and  its  ports,  thrown  open  to  the  mercantile  marine 
of  every  nation,  are  formally  and  in  perpetuity  interdicted 
to  the  flag  of  war,    either  of  the  Powers  possessing  its 


6o3  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

coasts  or  of  any  other  Power  with  the  exceptions  mentioned 
in  articles  fourteen  and  nineteen. "  The  exceptions  only 
reserved  the  right  of  each  of  the  Powers  to  have  the  same 
number  of  small  armed  vessels  in  the  Black  Sea  to  act  as 
a  sort  of  maritime  police  and  to  protect  the  coasts.  The 
Sultan  and  the  Emperor  engaged  to  establish  and  main- 
tain no  military  or  maritime  arsenals  in  that  sea.  The 
navigation  of  the  Danube  was  thrown  open.  In  exchange 
for  the  towns  restored  to  him,  and  in  order  more  fully  to 
secure  the  navigation  of  the  Danube,  the  Emperor  con- 
sented to  a  certain  rectification  of  his  frontier  in  Bessarabia, 
the  territory  ceded  by  Russia  to  be  annexed  to  Moldavia 
under  the  suzerainty  of  the  Porte.  Moldavia  and  Wal- 
lachia,  continuing  under  suzerainty  of  the  Sultan,  were  to 
enjoy  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  they  already  pos- 
sessed under  the  guarantee  of  the  contracting  Powers,  but 
with  no  separate  right  of  intervention  in  their  affairs. 
The  existing  position  of  Servia  was  assured.  A  conven- 
tion respecting  the  Dardanelles  and  the  Bosphorus  was 
made  by  all  the  Powers.  By  this  convention  the  Sultan 
maintained  the  ancient  rule  prohibiting  ships  of  war  of 
foreign  Powers  from  entering  the  Straits  so  long  as  the 
Porte  is  at  peace.  During  time  of  peace  the  Sultan  en- 
gaged to  admit  no  foreign  ships  of  war  into  the  Bosphorus 
or  the  Dardanelles.  The  Sultan  reserved  to  himself  the 
right,  as  in  former  times,  of  delivering  firmans  of  passage 
for  light  vessels  under  the  flag  of  war  employed  in  the 
service  of  foreign  Powers;  that  is  to  say,  of  their  diplo- 
matic missions.  A  separate  convention  as  to  the  Black  Sea 
between  Russia  and  Turkey  agreed  that  the  contracting 
parties  should  have  in  that  sea  light  steam-vessels  of  not 
more  than  800  tons,  and  four  steam  or  sailing  vessels  of 
not  more  than  200  tons  each. 

Thus  the  controversies  about  the  Christian  provinces, 
the  Straits,  and  the  Black  Sea  were  believed  to  be  settled. 
The  great  central  business  of  the  Congress,  however,  was 
to  assure  the  independence  and  the  territorial  integrity  of 


The  Close  of  the  War.  '  603 

Turkey,  now  admitted  to  a  place  in  the  family  of  European 
States.  As  it  did  not  seem  clear  to  those  most  particularly 
concerned  in  bringing  about  this  result  that  the  arrange- 
ments adopted  in  full  congress  had  been  sufficient  to  guar- 
antee Turkey  from  the  enemy  they  most  feared,  there  was 
a  tripartite  treaty  afterward  agreed  to  between  England, 
France,  and  Austria.  This  document  bears  date  in  Paris, 
April  15th,  1856;  by  it  the  contracting  parties  guaranteed 
jointly  and  severally  the  independence  and  integrity  of  the 
Ottoman  empire,  and  declared  that  any  infraction  of  the 
general  treaty  of  March  30th  would  be  considered  by  them 
as  casus  belli.  It  is  probable  that  not  one  of  the  three  con- 
tracting parties  was  quite  sincere  in  the  making  of  this 
treaty.  It  appears  to  have  been  done  at  the  instigation 
of  Austria,  much  less  for  the  sake  of  Turkey  than  in  order 
that  she  might  have  some  understanding  of  a  special  kind 
with  some  of  the  Great  Powers,  and  thus  avoid  the  sem- 
blance of  isolation  which  she  now  especially  dreaded,  hav- 
ing Russia  to  fear  on  the  one  side,  and  seeing  Italy  already 
raising  its  head  on  the  other.  England  did  not  particularly 
care  about  the  tripartite  treaty,  which  was  pressed  upon 
her,  and  which  she  accepted  trusting  that  she  might  never 
have  to  act  upon  it;  and  France  accepted  it  without  any 
liking  for  it,  probably  without  the  least  intention  of  ever 
acting  on  it. 

The  Congress  was  also  the  means  of  bringing  about  a 
treaty  between  England  and  France  and  Sweden.  By  this 
engagement  Sweden  undertook  not  to  cede  to  Russia  any 
part  of  her  present  territories  or  any  rights  of  fishery;  and 
the  two  other  Powers  agreed  to  maintain  Sweden  by  force 
against  aggression. 

The  Congress  of  Paris  was  remarkable,  too,  for  the  fact 
that  the  plenipotentiaries  before  separating  came  to  an 
agreement  on  the  subject  of  the  right  of  search,  and  the 
rules  generally  of  maritime  war.  They  agreed  to  the  four 
following  declarations :  "  First,  privateering  is  and  remains 
abolished.     Second,  the  neutral  flag  covers  enemies'  goods, 


6o4  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

with  the  exception  of  contraband  of  war.  Third,  neutral 
goods,  with  the  exception  of  contraband  of  war,  are  not 
liable  to  capture  under  an  enemy's  flag.  Fourth,  block- 
ades, in  order  to  be  binding,  must  be  effective;  that  is  to 
say,  maintained  by  a  force  sufficient  really  to  prevent 
access  to  the  enemy's  coast."  At  the  opening  of  the  war 
Great  Britain  had  already  virtually  given  up  the  claims 
she  once  made  against  neutrals,  and  which  were  indeed 
untenable  in  the  face  of  modern  civilization.  She  gladly 
agreed,  therefore,  to  ratify,  so  far  as  her  declaration  went, 
the  doctrines  which  would  abolish  forever  the  principle 
upon  which  those  and  kindred  claims  once  rested.  It  was 
agreed,  however,  that  the  rules  adopted  at  the  Congress  of 
Paris  should  only  be  binding  on  those  States  that  had 
acceded  or  should  accede  to  them.  The  Government  of 
the  United  States  had  previously  invited  the  great  Euro- 
pean Powers,  by  a  circular,  to  assent  to  the  broad  doctrine 
that  free  ships  make  free  goods.  At  the  instance  of  Eng- 
land, it  was  answered  that  the  adoption  of  that  doctrine 
must  be  conditional  on  America's  renouncing  the  right  of 
privateering.  To  this  the  United  States  raised  some 
difficulty,  and  the  declarations  of  the  Congress  were, 
therefore,  made  without  America's  assenting  to  them. 

With  many  other  questions,  too,  the  Congress  of  Paris 
occupied  itself.  At  the  instigation  of  Count  Cavour  the 
condition  of  Italy  was  brought  under  its  notice ;  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  out  of  the  Congress,  and  the  part 
that  Sardinia  assumed  as  representative  of  Italian  nation- 
ality, came  the  great  succession  of  events  which  ended  in 
the  establishment  of  a  King  of  Italy  in  the  palace  of  the 
Quirinal.  The  adjustment  of  the  condition  of  the  Danubian 
Principalities,  too,  engaged  much  attention  and  discussion, 
and  a  highly  ingenious  arrangement  was  devised  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  those  provinces  from  actual  union,  so 
that  they  might  be  coherent  enough  to  act  as  a  rampart 
against  Russia,  without  being  so  coherent  as  to  cause 
Austria  any  alarm  for  her  own  somewhat  disjointed,  not 


The  Close  of  the  War.  605 

to  say  distracted,  political  system.  All  these  artificial  and 
complex  arrangements  presently  fell  to  pieces,  and  the 
Principalities  became  in  course  of  no  very  long  time  an 
independent  State  under  an  hereditary  prince.  But  for 
the  hour  it  was  hoped  that  the  independence  of  Turkey 
and  the  restriction  of  Russia,  the  security  of  the  Christian 
provinces,  the  neutrality  of  the  Black  Sea,  and  the  closing 
of  the  Straits  against  war  vessels,  had  been  bought  by 
the  war. 

England  lost  some  twenty-four  thousand  men  in  the 
war;  of  whom  hardly  a  sixth  fell  in  battle  or  died  of 
wounds.  Cholera  and  other  diseases  gave  grim  account  of 
the  rest.  Forty-one  millions  of  money  were  added  by  the 
campaign  to  the  national  debt.  Not  much,  it  will  be  seen, 
was  there  in  the  way  of  mere  military  glory  to  show  for 
the  cost.  Our  fleets  had  hardly  any  chance  of  making 
their  power  felt.  The  ships  of  the  allies  took  Bomarsund 
in  the  Baltic,  and  Kinburn  in  the  Black  Sea,  and  bom- 
barded several  places;  but  the  war  was  not  one  that  gave  a 
chance  to  a  Nelson,  even  if  a  Nelson  had  been  at  hand. 
Among  the  accidental  and  unpleasant  consequences  of  the 
campaign  it  is  worth  mentioning  the  quarrel  in  which 
England  became  involved  with  the  United  States  because 
of  our  Foreign  Enlistment  Act.  At  the  close  of  Decem- 
ber, 1854,  Parliament  hurriedly  passed  an  Act  authorizing 
the  formation  of  a  Foreign  Legion  for  service  in  the  war, 
and  some  Swiss  and  Germans  were  recruited  who  never 
proved  of  the  slightest  service.  Prussia  and  America  both 
complained  that  the  zeal  of  our  recruiting  functionaries 
outran  the  limits  of  discretion  and  of  law.  One  of  our 
consuls  was  actually  put  on  trial  at  Cologne;  and  America 
made  a  serious  complaint  of  the  enlistment  of  her  citizens. 
England  apologized;  but  the  United  States  were  out  of 
temper,  and  insisted  on  sending  our  minister,  Mr.  Cramp- 
ton,  away  from  Washington,  and  some  little  time  passed 
before  the  friendly  relations  of  the  two  States  were  com- 
pletely restored. 


6o6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

So  the  Crimean  War  ended.  It  was  one  of  the  unlucky 
accidents  of  the  hour  that  the  curtain  fell  in  the  Crimea 
upon  what  may  be  considered  a  check  to  the  arms  of  Eng- 
land. There  were  not  a  few  in  this  country  who  would 
gladly  have  seen  the  peace  negotiations  fail,  in  order  that 
England  might  thereby  have  an  opportunity  of  reasserting 
her  military  supremacy  in  the  eyes  of  Europe.  Never 
during  the  campaign,  nor  for  a  long  time  before  it,  had 
England  been  in  so  excellent  a  condition  for  war  as  she 
was  when  the  warlike  operations  suddenly  came  to  an  end. 
The  campaign  had,  indeed,  only  been  a  training-time  for 
us  after  the  unnerving  relaxation  of  a  long  peace.  We 
had  learned  some  severe  lessons  from  it ;  and  not  unnatu- 
rally there  were  impatient  spirits  who  chafed  at  the  idea 
of  England's  having  no  opportunity  of  putting  these  les- 
sons to  account.  It  was  but  a  mere  chance  that  prevented 
us  from  accomplishing  the  capture  of  the  Redan,  despite 
the  very  serious  disadvantages  with  which  we  were  ham- 
pered in  our  enterprise,  as  compared  with  our  allies  and 
their  simultaneous  operation.  With  just  a  little  better 
generalship  the  Redan  would  have  been  taken;  as  it  was, 
even  with  the  generalship  that  we  had,  the  next  attempt 
would  not  have  been  likely  to  fail.  But  the  Russians 
abandoned  Sebastopol,  and  our  principal  ally  was  even 
more  anxious  for  peace  than  the  enemy ;  and  we  had  no 
choice  but  to  accept  the  situation.  The  war  had  never 
been  popular  in  France.  It  had  never  had  even  that 
amount  of  popularity  which  the  French  people  accorded 
to  their  Emperor's  later  enterprise,  the  campaign  against 
Austria.  Louis  Napoleon  had  had  all  he  wanted.  He 
had  been  received  into  the  society  of  European  sovereigns, 
and  he  had  made  what  the  French  public  were  taught 
to  consider  a  brilliant  campaign.  It  is  surprising  to  any 
one  who  looks  calmly  back  now  on  the  history  of  the 
Crimean  War  to  find  what  an  extravagant  amount  of  credit 
the  French  army  obtained  by  its  share  in  the  operations. 
Even  in  this  country  it  was  at  the  time  an  almost  universal 


The  Close  of  the  War.  607 

opinion   that  the  French  succeeded  in  everything  they 
tried;    that  their  system  was  perfect;    that  their  tactics 
were  beyond  improvement ;  that  they  were  a  contrast  to 
■us  in  every  respect.     Much  of  this  absurd  delusion  was  no 
doubt  the  result  of  a  condition  of  things  among  us  which 
no  reasonable  Englishman  would  exchange  for  all   the 
imaginary  triumphs  that  a  court  historiographer  ever  cel- 
ebrated.    It  was  due  to  the  fact  that  our  system  was  open 
to  the  criticism  of  every  pen  that  chose  to  assail  it.     Not 
a  spot  in  our  military  organization  escaped  detection  and 
exposure.       Every   detail    was    keenly   criticised;    every 
weakness  was  laid  open  to  public  observation.     We  invited 
all  the  world  to  see  where  we  were  failing,  and  what  were 
the  causes  of  our  failure.     Our  journals  did  the  work  for 
the  military  system  of  England  that  Matthew  Arnold  says 
Goethe  did  for  the  political  and  social  systems  of  Europe 
—  struck  its  finger  upon  the  weak  places,  "  and  said  thou 
ailest  here  and  there."     While  the  official  and  officious 
journals  of  the  French  empire  were  sounding  paeans  to  the 
honor  of  the  Emperor  and  his  successes,  to  his  generals, 
his  officers,   his  commissariat,  his  transport  service,  his 
soldiers,  his  camp,  pioneers,  and  all,  our  leading  papers 
of  all  shades  of  politics  were  only  occupied  in  pointing 
out   defects,   and  blaming   those  who  did   not   instantly 
remedy  them.     Unpatriotic  conduct,  it  may  be  said.  Ay, 
truly,  if  the  conduct  of  the  doctor  be  unfriendly  when  he 
tells  that  we  have  the  symptoms  of  failing  health,  and 
warns  us  to  take  some  measures  for  rest  and  renovation. 
Some  of  the  criticisms  of  the  English  press  were  undoubt- 
edly inaccurate  and  rash.     But  their  general  effect  was 
bracing,   healthful,   successful.     Their   immediate  result 
was  that  which  has  already  been  indicated — to  leave  the 
English  army  at  the  close  of  the  campaign  far  better  able 
to  undertake  prolonged  and  serious  operations  of  war  than 
it  had  been  s^  any  time  during  the  campaign's  continu- 
ance.    For  the  effect  of  the  French  system  on  the  French 
army  we  should  have  to  come  down  a  little  later  in  history, 


6o8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

and  study  the  workings  of  Imperialism  as  they  displayed 
themselves  in  the  confidence,  the  surprises,  and  the  col- 
lapse of  1870. 

Still,  there  was  a  feeling  of  disappointment  in  this 
country  at  the  close  of  the  war.  This  was  partly  due  to 
dissatisfaction  with  the  manner  in  which  we  had  carried 
on  the  campaign,  and  partly  to  distrust  of  its  political  re- 
sults. Our  soldiers  had  done  splendidly ;  but  our  generals 
and  our  system  had  done  poorly  indeed.  Only  one  first- 
class  reputation  of  a  military  order  had  come  out  of  the 
war,  and  that  was  by  the  common  consent  of  the  world 
awarded  to  a  Russian — to  General  Todleben,  the  defender 
of  Sebastopol.  No  new  name  was  made  on  our  side  or  on 
that  of  the  French;  and  some  promising  or  traditional 
reputations  were  shattered.  The  political  results  of  the 
war  were  to  many  minds  equally  unsatisfying.  We  had 
gone  into  the  enterprise  for  two  things — to  restrain  the 
aggressive  and  aggrandizing  spirit  of  Russia,  and  to  secure 
the  integrity  and  independence  of  Turkey  as  a  Power 
capable  of  upholding  herself  with  credit  among  the  States 
of  Europe.  Events  which  happened  more  than  twenty 
years  later  will  have  to  be  studied  before  any  one  can 
form  a  satisfactory  opinion  as  to  the  degree  of  success 
which  attended  each  of  these  objects.  For  the  present,  it 
is  enough  to  say  that  there  was  not  among  thoughtful 
minds  at  the  time  a  very  strong  conviction  of  success 
either  way.  Lord  Aberdeen  had  been  modest  in  his  esti- 
mate of  what  the  war  would  do.  He  had  never  had  any 
heart  in  it,  and  he  was  not  disposed  to  exaggerate  its 
beneficent  possibilities.  He  estimated  that  it  might  per- 
haps secure  peace  in  the  East  of  Europe  for  some  twenty- 
five  years.  His  modest  expectation  was  prophetic.  In- 
deed, it  a  little  overshot  the  mark.  Twenty-two  years 
after  the  close  of  the  Crimean  campaign  Russia  and  Turkey 
were  at  war  again. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

THE    LITERATURE    OF    THE    REIGN.       FIRST    SURVEY. 

The  close  of  the  Crimean  War  is  a  great  landmark  in 
the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  This,  therefore,  is  a  con- 
venient opportunity  to  cast  a  glance  back  upon  the  literary 
achievements  of  a  period  so  markedly  divided  in  political 
interest  from  any  that  went  before  it.  The  reign  of  Queen 
Victoria  is  the  first  in  which  the  constitutional  and  Parlia- 
mentary system  of  government  came  fairly  and  completely 
into  recognition.  It  is  also  the  reign  which  had  the  good 
fortune  to  witness  the  great  modern  development  in  all 
that  relates  to  practical  invention,  and  more  especially  in 
the  application  of  science  to  the  work  of  making  communi- 
cation rapid  between  men.  On  land  and  ocean,  in  air  and 
under  the  sea,  the  history  of  rapid  travel  and  rapid  inter- 
change of  message  coincides  with  that  of  the  present 
reign.  Such  a  reign  ought  to  have  a  distinctive  literature. 
So,  in  truth,  it  has.  Of  course  it  is  somewhat  bold  to 
predict  long  and  distinct  renown  for  contemporaries  or 
contemporary  schools.  But  it  may,  perhaps,  be  assumed 
without  any  undue  amount  of  speculative  venturesomeness 
that  the  age  of  Queen  Victoria  will  stand  out  in  history  as 
the  period  of  a  literature  as  distinct  from  others  as  the  age 
of  Elizabeth  or  Anne;  although  not,  perhaps,  equal  in 
greatness  to  the  latter,  and  far  indeed  below  the  former. 
At  the  opening  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign  a  great  race  of 
literary  men  had  come  to  a  close.  It  is  curious  to  note  how 
sharply  and  completely  the  literature  of  Victoria  separates 
itself  from  that  of  the  era  whose  heroes  were  Scott,  Byron, 
and  Wordsworth.  Before  Queen  Victoria  came  to  the 
throne,  Scott,  Byron,  Coleridge,  and  Keats  were  dead. 
Vol.  I. — 39 


6io  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Wordsworth  lived,  indeed,  for  many  years  after;  so  did 
Southey  and  Moore ;  and  Savage  Landor  died  much  later 
still.  But  Wordsworth,  Southey,  Moore,  and  Landor  had 
completed  their  literary  work  before  Victoria  came  to  the 
throne.  Not  one  of  them  added  a  cubit  or  an  inch  to  his 
intellectual  stature  from  that  time ;  some  of  them  even  did 
work  which  distinctly  proved  that  their  day  was  done.  A 
new  and  fresh  breath  was  soon  after  breathed  into  liter- 
ature. Nothing,  perhaps,  is  more  remarkable  about  the 
better  literature  of  the  age  of  Queen  Victoria  than  its  com- 
plete severance  from  the  leadership  of  that  which  had 
gone  before  it,  and  its  evidence  of  a  fresh  and  genuine  in- 
spiration. It  is  a  somewhat  curious  fact,  too,  very  con- 
venient for  the  purposes  of  this  history,  that  the  literature 
of  Queen  Victoria's  time  thus  far  divides  itself  clearly- 
enough  into  two  parts.  The  poets,  novelists,  and  histo- 
rians who  were  making  their  fame  with  the  beginning  of 
the  reign  had  done  all  their  best  work  and  made  their 
mark  before  these  later  years,  and  were  followed  by  a  new 
and  different  school,  drawing  inspiration  from  wholly 
different  sources,  and  challenging  comparison  as  antago- 
nists rather  than  disciples. 

We  speak  now  only  of  literature.  In  science  the  most 
remarkable  developments  were  reserved  for  the  later  years 
of  the  reign.  We  use  the  words  "remarkable  develop- 
ments" in  the  historical  rather  than  in  the  scientific  sense. 
It  would  be  hardly  possible  to  overrate  the  benefits  con. 
ferred  upon  science  and  the  world  by  some  of  the  scientific 
men  who  made  the  best  part  of  their  fame  in  the  earlier 
years  of  the  reign.  Some  great  names  at  once  start  to  the 
memory.  We  think  of  Brewster,  the  experimental  philos- 
opher, who  combined  in  so  extraordinary  a  degree  the 
strictest  severity  of  scientific  argument  and  form  with  a 
freedom  of  fancy  and  imagination  which  lent  picturesque- 
ness  to  all  his  illustrations,  and  invested  his  later  writmgs 
especially  with  an  indefinable  charm.  We  think  of 
Michael  Faraday,  the  chemist  and  electrician,  who  knew 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       61 1 

so  well  how  to  reconcile  the  boldest  researches  into  the 
heights  and  deeps  of  science  with  the  sincerest  spirit  of 
faith  and  devotion ;  the  memory  of  whose  delightful  im- 
provisations on  the  science  he  loved  to  expound  must 
remain  forever  with  all  who  had  the  privilege  of  hearing 
the  unrivalled  lecturer  deliver  his  annual  discourses  at  the 
Royal  Institution.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  name  of  Sir 
John  Herschel,  a  gifted  member  of  a  gifted  family,  would 
be  forgotten  by  any  one  taking  even  the  hastiest  glance 
at  the  science  of  our  time — a  family  of  whom  it  may  truly 
be  said,  as  the  German  prose-poet  saj'-s  of  his  dreaming 
hero,  that  their  eyes  were  among  the  stars  and  their  souls 
in  the  blue  ether.  Richard  Owen's  is,  in  another  field  of 
knowledge,  a  great  renown.  Owen  has  been  called  the 
Cuvier  of  England  and  the  Newton  of  natural  history,  and 
there  cannot  be  any  doubt  that  his  researches  and  discov- 
eries as  an  anatomist  and  palaeontologist  have  marked  a 
distinct  era  in  the  development  of  the  study  to  which  he 
devoted  himself.  Hugh  Miller,  the  author  of  "  The  Old 
Red  Sandstone"  and  "The  Testimony  of  the  Rocks,"  the 
devotee  and  unfortunately  the  martyr  of  scientific  inquiry, 
brought  a  fresh  and  brilliant  literary  ability,  almost  as 
imtutored  and  spontaneous  as  that  of  his  immortal  country- 
man, Robert  Burns,  to  bear  on  the  exposition  of  the 
studies  to  which  he  literally  sacrificed  his  life.  If,  there- 
fore, we  say  that  the  later  period  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign 
is  more  remarkable  in  science  than  the  former,  it  is  not 
because  we  would  assert  that  the  men  of  this  later  day 
contributed  in  richer  measure  to  the  development  of 
human  knowledge,  and  especially  of  practical  science, 
than  those  of  the  earlier  time;  but  it  was  in  the  later 
period  that  the  scientific  controversies  sprang  up,  and  the 
school  arose  which  will  be,  in  the  historian's  sense,  most 
closely  associated  with  the  epoch.  The  value  of  the  labors 
of  men  like  Owen  and  Faraday  and  Brewster  is  often  to  be 
appreciated  thoroughly  by  scientific  students  alone.  What 
they  have  done  is  to  be  recorded  in  the  history  of  science 


6i2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

rather  than  in  the  general  and  popular  history  of  a  day. 
But  the  school  of  scientific  thought  which  Darwin  founded, 
and  in  which  Huxley  and  Tyndall  taught,  is  the  subject 
of  a  controversy  which  may  be  set  down  as  memorable  in 
the  history  of  the  world.     All  science  and  all  common  life  • 
accepted  with  gratitude  and  without  contest  the  contribu-' 
tions  made  to  our  knowledge  by  Faraday  and  Brewster; 
but  the  theories  of  Darwin  divided  the  scientific  world,  the 
religious  world,   and  indeed  all  society,  into  two  hostile 
camps,  and  so  became  an  event  in  history  which  the  his- 
torian can  no  more  pass  over  than,  in  telling  of  the  growth 
of  the  United  States,  he  could  omit  any  mention  of  the 
great  Civil  War.     Even  in  dealing  with  the  growth  of 
science,  it  is  on  the  story  of  battles  that  the  attention  of 
the  outer  world  must,  to  the  end  of  time,  be  turned  with 
the  keenest  interest.     This  is,  one  might  almost  think,  a 
scientific  law  in  itself,  with  which  it  would  be  waste  of 
time  to  quarrel. 

The  earlier  part  of  the  reign  was  richer  in  literary 
genius  than  the  later  has  thus  far  been.  Of  course  the 
dividing  line  which  we  draw  is  loosely  drawn,  and  may 
sometimes  appear  to  be  capricious.  Some  of  those  who 
won  their  fame  in  the  earlier  part  continued  active  work- 
ers, in  certain  instances  steadily  adding  to  their  celebrity, 
through  the  succeeding  years.  The  figure  of  Thomas 
Carlyle  is  familiar  still  to  all  who  live  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Chelsea.  It  was  late  in  the  reign  of  Victoria  that  Stuart 
Mill  came  out  for  the  first  time  on  a  public  platform  in 
London,  after  a  life  divided  between  official  work  and  the 
most  various  reading  and  study;  a  life  divided,  too,  be- 
tween the  seclusion  of  Blackheath  and  the  more  poetic 
seclusion  of  Avignon,  among  the  nightingales  whose  song 
was  afterward  so  sweet  to  his  dying  ears.  He  came, 
strange  and  shy,  into  a  world  which  knew  him  only  in  his 
books,  and  to  which  the  gentle  and  grave  demeanor  of  the 
shrinking  and  worn  recluse  seemed  out  of  keeping  with 
the  fearless  brain  and  heart  which  his  career  as  a  thinker 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       6ij 

proved  him  to  have.  The  reign  had  run  for  forty  years 
when  Harriet  Martineau  was  taken  from  that  beautiful 
and  romantic  home  in  the  bosom  of  the  Lake  country  to 
which  her  celebrity  had  drawn  so  many  famous  visitors 
for  so  long  a  time.  The  renown  of  Dickens  began  with 
the  reign,  and  his  death  was  sadly  premature  when  he  died 
in  his  quaint  and  charming  home  at  Gad's  Hill,  in  the 
country  of  Falstaff  and  Prince  Hal,  some  thirty-three  years 
after.  Mrs.  Browning  passed  away  very  prematurely; 
but  it  might  well  be  contended  that  the  fame,  or  at  least 
the  popularity,  of  Robert  Browning  belongs  to  this  later 
part  of  the  reign,  even  though  his  greatest  work  belongs 
to  the  earlier.  The  author  of  the  most  brilliant  and  vivid 
book  of  travel  known  in  our  modern  English,  "Eothen," 
made  a  sudden  renown  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  reign, 
and  achieved  a  new  and  a  different  sort  of  repute  as  the 
historian  of  the  Crimean  War  during  the  later  part.  Still 
if  we  take  the  close  of  the  Crimean  War  as  an  event  divid- 
ing the  reign  thus  far  into  two  parts,  we  shall  find  that 
there  does  seem  a  tolerably  clear  division  between  the 
literature  of  the  two  periods.  We  have,  therefore,  put  in 
this  first  part  of  our  history  the  men  and  women  who  had 
distinctly  made  their  mark  in  these  former  years,  and  who 
would  have  been  famous  if  from  that  time  out  they  had 
done  nothing  more.  It  is  with  this  division  borne  in 
mind  that  we  describe  the  reign  as  more  remarkable  in 
the  literature  of  the  earlier  and  in  the  science  of  these 
later  years.  It  is  not  rash  to  say  that,  although  poets, 
historians,  and  novelists  of  celebrity  came  afterward,  and 
may  come  yet,  the  literature  of  our  time  gave  its  measure, 
as  the  French  phrase  is,  in  that  earlier  period. 

Alike  in  its  earlier  passages  and  in  its  later  the  reign  is 
rich  in  historical  labors.  The  names  of  Grote,  Macaulay, 
and  Carlyle  occur  at  once  to  the  mind  when  we  survey  the 
former  period.  Mr.  Grote's  history  of  Greece  is,  indeed, 
a  monumental  piece  of  work.  It  has  all  that  patience 
and  exhaustive  care  which  principally  mark  the  German 


6 14  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

historians,  and  it  has  an  earnestness  which  is  not  to  be 
found  generally  in  the  representatives  of  what  Carlyle  has 
called  the  Dryasdust  school.  Grote  threw  himself  com- 
pletely into  the  life  and  the  politics  of  Athens.  It  was 
said  of  him  with  some  truth  that  he  entered  so  thoroughly 
into  all  the  political  life  of  Greece  as  to  become  now  and 
then  the  partisan  of  this  or  that  public  man.  His  own 
practical  acquaintance  with  politics  was  undoubtedly  of 
great  service  to  him.  We  have  all  grown  somewhat  tired 
of  hearing  the  words  of  Gibbon  quoted,  in  which  he  tells 
us  that  "the  discipline  and  evolutions  of  a  modern  battal- 
ion gave  me  a  clearer  notion  of  the  phalanx  and  the 
legion ;  and  the  captain  of  the  Hampshire  Grenadiers  (the 
reader  may  smile)  has  not  been  useless  to  the  historian  of 
the  Roman  Empire."  Assuredly  the  practical  knowledge 
of  politics  which  Grote  acquired  during  the  nine  or  ten 
years  of  his  Parliamentary  career  was  of  much  service  to 
the  historian  of  Greece.  It  has  been  said,  indeed,  of  him 
that  he  never  could  quite  keep  from  regarding  the  struggles 
of  parties  in  Athens  as  exactly  illustrating  the  principles 
disputed  between  the  Liberals  and  the  Tories  in  England. 
It  does  not  seem  to  us,  however,  that  his  political  career 
affected  his  historical  studies  in  any  way  but  by  throwing 
greater  vitality  and  nervousness  into  his  descriptions  of 
Athenian  controversies.  The  difference  between  a  man 
who  has  mingled  anywhere  in  the  active  life  of  politics, 
and  one  who  only  knows  that  life  from  books  and  the  talk 
of  others,  is  specially  likely  to  show  itself  in  such  a  study 
as  Grote's  history.  His  political  training  enabled  Grote 
to  see  in  the  statesmen  and  soldiers  of  the  Greek  peoples 
men,  and  not  trees,  walking.  It  taught  him  how  to  make 
the  dry  bones  live.  Mr.  Grote  began  life  as  what  would 
have  been  called  in  later  years  a  Philosophical  Radical. 
He  was  a  close  friend  of  Stuart  Mill,  although  he  did  not 
always  agree  with  Mill  in  his  opinions.  During  his 
Parliamentary  career  he  devoted  himself,  for  the  most 
part,  to  the  advocacy  of  the  system  of  vote  by  ballot.     He 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       615 

brought  forward  a  motion  on  the  subject  every  session, 
as  Mr.  Charles  Villiers  did  at  one  time  for  the  repeal  of 
the  Corn-laws.  He  only  gave  up  the  House  of  Commons 
in  order  that  he  might  be  free  to  complete  his  great  his- 
tory. He  did  not  retain  all  his  radical  opinions  to  the 
end  of  his  life  so  thoroughly  as  Mill  did,  but  owned  with 
a  certain  regret  that  in  many  ways  his  views  had  under- 
gone modification,  and  that  he  grew  less  and  less  ardent 
for  political  change,  less  hopeful,  we  may  suppose,  of  the 
amount  of  good  to  be  done  for  human  happiness  and  virtue 
by  the  spread  and  movement  of  what  are  now  called  ad- 
vanced opinions.  It  must  be  owned  that  it  takes  a  very 
vioforous  and  elastic  mind  to  enable  a  man  to  resist  the 
growth  of  that  natural  and  physical  tendency  toward  con- 
servatism or  reaction  which  comes  with  advancing  years. 
It  is  as  well  for  society,  on  the  whole,  that  this  should  be 
so,  and  that  the  elders,  as  a  rule,  should  form  themselves 
into  a  guard  to  challenge  very  pertinaciously  all  the  eager 
claims  and  demands  for  change  made  by  hopeful  and  rest- 
less youth.  No  one  would  more  readily  have  admitted 
the  advantage  that  may  come  from  this  common  law  of 
life  than  Grote's  friend,  Mill ;  although  Mill  remained  to 
the  close  of  his  career  as  full  of  hope  in  the  movement  of 
liberal  opinions  as  he  had  been  in  his  boyhood;  still,  to 
quote  from  some  noble  words  of  Schiller,  "reverencing 
as  a  man  the  dreams  of  his  youth."  In  his  later  years 
Grote  withdrew  from  all  connection  with  active  political 
controversy,  and  was,  indeed,  curiously  ignorant  of  the 
very  bearings  of  some  of  the  greatest  questions  around  the 
settlement  of  which  the  passions  and  interests  of  another 
hemisphere  were  brought  into  fierce  and  vast  dispute. 

We  have  already  had  occasion  more  than  once  to  speak 
of  Macaulay,  the  great  Parliamentary  debater  and  states- 
man. It  is  the  less  necessary  to  say  much  of  him  as  a 
historian ;  for  Macaulay  will  be  remembered  rather  as  a 
man  who  could  do  many  things  brilliantly  than  as  the 
author  of  a  history.     Yet  Macaulay's  "  History  of  Eng- 


6i6  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

land,*  whatever  its  defects,  is  surely  entitled  to  rank  as  a 
great  work.  We  do  not  know  whether  grave  scholars  will 
regard  it  as  to  the  honor  of  the  book  or  the  reverse  that 
it  was  by  far  the  most  popular  historical  essay  ever  pro- 
duced by  an  Englishman.  The  successive  volumes  of 
Macaulay's  "  History  of  England"  were  run  after  as  the 
Waverley  Novels  might  have  been  at  the  zenith  of  their 
author's  fame.  Living  England  talked  for  the  time  of 
nothing  but  Macaulay's  "England."  Certainly  history 
had  never  before  in  our  country  been  treated  in  a  style  so 
well  calculated  to  render  it  at  once  popular,  fascinating, 
and  fashionable.  Every  chapter  glittered  with  vivid  and 
highly  colored  description.  On  almost  every  page  was 
found  some  sentence  of  glowing  eloquence  or  gleaming 
antithesis,  which  at  once  lent  itself  to  citation  and  repeti- 
tion. Not  one  word  of  it  could  have  failed  to  convey  its 
meaning.  The  whole  stood  out  in  an  atmosphere  clear, 
bright,  and  incapable  of  misty  illusion  as  that  of  a  Swiss 
lake  in  summer.  No  shade  or  faint  haze  of  a  doubt 
appeared  anywhere.  The  admirer  of  Macaulay  had  all 
the  comfort  in  his  studies  that  a  votary  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  may  have.  He  had  an  infallible  guide. 
He  had  no  need  to  vex  himself  with  doubt,  speculation, 
or  even  conjecture.  This  absolute  certainty  about  every- 
thing was,  beyond  question,  one  great  source  of  Macaulay's 
popularity.  That  resolute  conviction  which  readers  of  a 
more  intellectual  class  are  especially  inclined  to  distrust 
has  the  same  charm  for  the  ordinary  reader  that  it  has  for 
children,  who  never  care  to  hear  any  story  if  they  suppose 
the  narrator  does  not  know  all  about  it  in  such  a  way  as 
to  render  question  or  contradiction  impossible.  But  al- 
though this  was  one  of  the  causes  of  Macaulay's  popularity, 
it  was  not  the  most  substantial  cause.  The  brilliancy  of 
his  style,  the  variety  and  aptness  of  his  illustrations,  and 
the  animated  manner  in  which  he  contrived  to  set  his 
ideas  of  men,  places,  and  events  before  the  reader — these 
were  among  the  sources  of  success  to  which  his  admirers 


The  Literature  of  the  Rei'gn.     First  Survey.       617 

must  look  with  the  greatest  satisfaction.  It  is  of  late 
somewhat  the  fashion  to  disparage  Macaulay.  He  was  a 
popular  idol  so  long  that  in  the  natural  course  of  things 
it  has  come  to  him  to  have  his  title  to  worship,  or  even  to 
faith,  very  generally  questioned.  To  be  unreasonably 
admired  by  one  generation  is  to  incur  the  certainty  of 
being  unreasonably  disparaged  by  the  next.  The  tendency 
of  late  is  to  assume  that  because  Macaulay  was  brilliant 
he  must  necessarily  be  superficial.  But  Macaulay  was  not 
superficial.  He  was  dogmatic;  he  was  full  of  prejudice, 
he  was  in  all  respects  a  better  advocate  than  judge;  he 
was  wanting  in  the  calm,  impartial  balancing  faculty  which 
a  historian  of  the  highest  class  ought  to  have ;  but  he  was 
not  superficial.  No  man  could  make  out  a  better  and 
stronger  case  for  any  side  of  a  controversy  which  he  was 
led  to  espouse.  He  was  not  good  at  drawing  or  explain- 
ing complex  characters.  He  loved,  indeed,  to  picture 
contradictory  and  paradoxical  characters.  Nothing  de- 
lighted him  more  than  to  throw  off  an  animated  descrip- 
tion of  some  great  person,  who  having  been  shown  in  the 
first  instance  to  possess  one  set  of  qualities  in  extreme 
prominence,  was  then  shown  to  have  a  set  of  exactly  an- 
tagonistic qualities  in  quite  equal  prominence.  This  was 
not  describing  a  complex  character.  It  was  merely 
embodying  a  paradox.  It  was  to  "  solder  close,"  as  Timon 
of  Athens  says,  "impossibilities  and  make  them  kiss." 
There  was  something  too  much  of  trick  about  this,  al- 
though it  was  often  done  with  so  much  power  as  to  be- 
wilder the  better  judgment  of  the  calmest  reader.  But 
where  Macaulay  happened  to  be  right  in  his  view  of  a  man 
or  an  event,  he  made  his  convictions  clear  with  an  impres- 
siveness  and  a  brilliancy  such  as  no  modern  writer  has 
surpassed.  The  world  owes  him  something  for  having 
protested  by  precept  and  example  against  the  absurd 
notion  that  the  ''dignity  of  history"  required  of  historians 
to  be  grave,  pompous,  and  dull.  He  was  not  a  Gibbon, 
but  he  wrote  with  all  Gibbon's  delight  in  the  picturesque- 


6i8  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ness  of  a  subject,  and  Gibbon's  resolve  to  fascinate  as 
well  as  to  instruct  his  readers.  Macaulay's  history  tries 
too  much  to  be  a  historical  portrait  gallery.  The  dangers 
of  such  a  style  do  not  need  to  be  pointed  out.  They  are 
amply  illustrated  in  Macaulay's  sparkling  pages.  But  it 
is  something  to  know  that  their  splendid  qualities  are  far 
more  conspicuous  still  than  their  defects.  Perhaps  very 
recent  readers  of  history,  too,  may  feel  disposed  to  be 
grateful  to  Macaulay  for  having  written  without  any  pro- 
found philosophical  theory  to  expound.  He  told  history 
like  a  story.  He  warmed  up  as  he  went  along,  and  grew 
enamored,  as  a  romancist  does,  of  this  character  and  angry 
with  that  other.  No  doubt  he  frequently  thus  did  harm 
to  the  trustworthiness  of  his  narrative  where  it  had  to  deal 
with  disputed  questions,  although  he  probably  enhanced 
the  charms  of  his  animated  style.  But  he  did  not  set  out 
with  a  mission  to  expound  some  theory  as  to  a  race  or  a 
tendency,  and  therefore  pledged  beforehand  to  bend  all 
facts  of  the  physical,  the  political,  and  the  moral  world 
to  the  duty  of  bearing  witness  for  him,  and  proclaiming 
the  truth  of  his  message  to  mankind. 

Macaulay  was  not  exactly  what  the  Germans  would  call 
a  many-sided  man.  He  never  was  anything  but  the  one 
Macaulay  in  all  he  did  or  attempted.  But  he  did  a  great 
man}'  things  well.  Nothing  that  he  ever  attempted  was 
done  badly.  He  was  as  successful  in  the  composition  of  a 
pretty  valentine  for  a  little  girl  as  he  was  in  his  history, 
his  essays,  his  "Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,"  and  his  Parlia- 
mentary speeches.  In  everything  he  attempted  he  went 
very  near  to  that  success  which  true  genius  achieves.  In 
everything  he  just  fell  short  of  that  achievement.  But  he 
so  nearly  attained  it  that  the  reader  who  takes  up  one  of 
Macaulay's  books  or  speeches  for  the  first  time  is  almost 
sure  to  believe,  under  the  influence  of  the  instant  impres- 
sion, that  the  genuine  inspiration  is  there.  Macaulay  is 
understood  to  have  for  a  long  time  thought  of  writing  a 
romance.     If  he  had  done  so,  we  may  feel  sure  that  many 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       619 

intelligentreaders  would  have  believed,  on  the  first  perusal 
of  it,  that  it  was  almost  on  a  level  with  Scott,  and  only  as 
the  first  impression  gradually  faded,  and  they  came  to 
read  it  over  again,  have  found  out  that  Macaulay  was  not 
a  Scott  in  fiction  any  more  than  he  was  a  Burke  in  elo- 
quence or  a  Gibbon  in  history.  He  filled  for  a  long  time 
a  larger  space  in  the  public  mind  than  any  other  literary 
man  in  England,  and  his  style  greatly  affected  literary- 
men.  But  his  influence  did  not  pierce  deeply  down  into 
public  feeling  and  thought  as  that  of  one  or  two  other 
men  of  the  same  period  undoubtedly  did,  and  does  still. 
He  did  not  impress  the  very  soul  of  English  feeling  as  Mr. 
Carlyle,  for  example,  has  done. 

No  influence  suffused  the  age  from  first  to  last  more 
strongly  than  that  of  Thomas  Carlyle.  England's  very 
way  of  thinking  was  at  one  time  profoundly  affected  by 
Carlyle.  He  introduced  the  English  people  to  the  great 
German  authors,  very  much  as  Lessinghad  introduced  the 
Germans  to  Shakespeare  and  the  old  English  ballads. 
Carlyle  wrote  in  a  style  which  was  so  little  like  that  ordi- 
narily accepted  as  English  that  the  best  thing  to  be  said 
for  it  was  that  it  was  not  exactly  German.  At  one  time 
it  appeared  to  be  so  completely  moulded  on  that  of  Jean 
Paul  Richter  that  not  a  few  persons  doubted  whether  the 
new-comer  really  had  any  ideas  of  his  own.  But  Carlyle 
soon  proved  that  he  could  think  for  himself;  and  he  very 
often  proved  it  by  thinking  wrong.  There  was  in  him  a 
strong,  deep  vein  of  the  poetic.  Long  after  he  had  evi- 
dently settled  down  to  be  a  writer  of  prose  and  nothing 
else,  it  still  seemed  to  many  that  his  true  sphere  was 
poetry.  The  grim  seriousness  which  he  had  taken  from 
his  Scottish  birth  and  belongings  was  made  hardly  less 
grim  by  the  irony  which  continually  gleamed  or  scowled 
through  it.  Truth  and  force  were  the  deities  of  Carlyle's 
especial  worship.  "  The  eternal  verities"  sat  on  the  top 
of  his  Olympus.  To  act  out  the  truth  in  life,  and  make 
others  act  it  out,  would  require  some  force  more  strong, 


620  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times, 

ubiquitous,  and  penetrating  than  we  can  well  obtain  from 
the  slow  deliberations  of  an  ordinary  Parliament,  with  its 
debates  and  divisions  and  everlasting  formulas.  There- 
fore, to  enforce  his  eternal  verities,  Carlyle  always 
preached  up  and  j'earned  for  the  strong  man,  the  poem  in 
action,  whom  the  world  in  our  day  had  not  found,  and 
perhaps  could  not  appreciate.  If  this  man  were  found,  it 
would  be  his  duty  and  his  privilege  to  drill  us  all  as  in 
some  vast  camp,  and  compel  us  to  do  the  right  thing  to 
his  dictation.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  this  preaching  of 
the  divine  right  of  force  had  a  serious  and  sometimes  a 
very  detrimental  effect  upon  the  public  opinion  of  Eng- 
land. It  degenerated  often  into  affectation,  alike  with 
the  teacher  and  the  disciples.  But  the  influence  of  Carlyle 
in  preaching  earnestness  and  truth,  in  art  and  letters  and 
everything  else,  had  a  healthy  and  very  remarkable  effect 
entirely  outside  the  regions  of  the  moralist,  who  in  this 
country  at  least  has  always  taught  the  same  lesson.  It  is 
not  probable  that  individual  men  were  made  much  more 
truthful  in  England  by  Carlyle's  glorification  of  the  eter- 
nal verities  than  they  would  have  been  without  it.  But 
his  influence  on  letters  and  art  was  peculiar,  and  was  not 
evanescent.  Carlyle  is  distinctly  the  founder  of  a  school 
of  history  and  a  school  of  art.  In  the  mean  while  we  may 
regard  him  simply  as  a  great  author,  and  treat  his  books 
as  literary  studies,  and  not  as  gospels.  Thus  regarded, 
we  shall  find  that  he  writes  in  a  style  which  every  sober 
critic  would  feel  bound  to  condemn,  but  which  neverthe- 
less the  soberest  critic  is  forced  continually,  despite  of 
himself  and  his  rules,  to  admire.  For  out  of  the  strange 
jargon  which  he  seems  to  have  deliberately  adopted,  Car- 
lyle has  undoubtedly  constructed  a  wonderfully  expressive 
medium  in  which  to  speak  his  words  of  remonstrance  and 
admonition.  It  is  a  mannerism,  but  a  mannerism  into 
which  a  great  deal  of  the  individuality  of  the  man  seems 
to  have  entered.  It  is  not  wholly  affectation  or  superfi- 
ciality.    Carlyle's  own  soul  seems  to  speak  out  in  it  more 


The  Liter  attire  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey,       621 

freely  and  strenuously  than  it  would  in  the  ordinary  Eng- 
lish of  society  and  literature.  No  tongue,  says  Richter, 
is  eloquent  save  in  its  own  language;  and  this  strange 
language  which  he  has  made  for  himself  does  really  ap- 
pear to  be  the  native  tongue  of  Carlyle's  powerful  and 
melancholy  eloquence.  Carlyle  is  endowed  with  a  mar- 
vellous  power  of  depicting  stormy  scenes  and  rugged, 
daring  natures.  At  times  strange,  wild,  piercing  notes 
of  the  pathetic  are  heard  through  his  strenuous  and  fierce 
bursts  of  eloquence,  like  the  wail  of  a  clarion  thrilling  be- 
tween the  blasts  of  a  storm.  His  history  of  the  French 
Revolution  is  history  read  by  lightning.  Of  this  remark- 
able book  John  Stuart  Mill  supplied  the  principal  material ; 
for  Mill  at  one  time  thought  of  writing  a  history  of  the 
Revolution  himself,  but,  giving  up  the  idea,  placed  the 
materials  he  had  collected  at  the  service  of  Carlyle.  Car- 
lyle used  the  materials  in  his  own  way.  He  is  indebted 
to  no  one  for  his  method  of  making  up  his  history.  With 
all  its  defects,  the  book  is  one  of  the  very  finest  our  age 
has  produced.  Its  characters  stand  out  like  portraits  by 
Rembrandt.  Its  crowds  live  and  move.  The  picture  of 
Mirabeau  is  worthy  of  the  hand  of  the  great  German  poet 
who  gave  us  Wallenstein.  But  Carlyle's  style  has  intro- 
duced into  this  country  a  thoroughly  false  method  of  writ- 
ing history.  It  is  a  method  which  has  little  regard  for  the 
"dry  light"  which  Bacon  approved.  It  works  under  the 
varying  glare  of  colored  lights.  Its  purpose  is  to  express 
scorn  of  one  set  of  ideas  and  men,  and  admiration  of  an- 
other. Given  the  man  we  admire,  then  all  his  doings  and 
ways  must  be  admirable ;  and  the  historian  proceeds  to 
work  this  principle  out.  Carlyle's  Mirabeau  is  as  truly  a 
creature  of  romance  as  the  Monte  Cristoof  Dumas.  This 
way  of  going  to  work  became  even  more  apparent,  as  the 
mannerisms  became  more  incessant,  in  Carlyle's  later 
writings — in  the  "  Frederick  the  Great, "  for  example.  The 
reader  dares  not  trust  such  history.  It  is  of  little  value  as 
an  instructor  in  the  lessons  of  the  times  and  events  it  deals 


622  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

with.  It  only  tells  us  what  Carlyle  thought  of  the  times 
and  the  events,  and  the  men  who  were  the  chief  actors  in 
them.  Nor  does  Carlyle  bequeath  many  new  ideas  to  the 
world  which  he  stirred  by  his  stormy  eloquence.  That 
falsehood  cannot  prevail  over  truth  in  the  end,  nor  simu- 
lacra do  the  work  of  realities,  is  not,  after  all,  a  lesson 
which  earth  can  be  said  to  have  waited  for  up  to  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  the  coming  of  Carlyle;  and  yet  it 
would  be  hard  to  point  to  any  other  philosophical  outcome 
of  Mr.  Carlyle's  teaching.  His  value  is  in  his  eloquence, 
his  power,  his  passion,  and  pathos;  his  stirring  and  life- 
like pictures  of  human  character,  whether  faithful  to  the 
historical  originals  or  not ;  and  the  vein  of  poetry  which 
runs  through  all  his  best  writings,  and  sometimes  makes 
even  the  least  sympathetic  reader  believe  that  he  has  to 
do  with  a  genuine  poet. 

In  strongest  contrast  to  the  influence  of  Carlyle  may  be 
set  the  influence  of  Mill.  Except  where  the  professed 
teachers  of  religious  creeds  are  concerned,  there  can  be 
found  no  other  man  in  the  reign  of  Victoria  who  had  any- 
thing like  the  influence  over  English  thought  that  Mill 
and  Carlyle  possessed.  Mill  was  a  devoted  believer  in 
the  possibilities  of  human  nature  and  of  liberty.  If  Rous- 
seau were  the  apostle  of  affliction.  Mill  was  surely  the 
apostle  of  freedom.  He  believed  that  human  society 
might  be  brought  to  something  not  far  removed  from  per- 
fection by  the  influence  of  education  and  of  freedom  act- 
ing on  the  best  impulses  and  disciplining  the  emotions  of 
men  and  women.  Mill  was  a  strange  blending  of  political 
economist  and  sentimentalist.  It  was  not  altogether  in 
humorous  exaggeration  that  somebody  said  he  was  Adam 
Smith  and  Petrarch  in  one.  The  curious  seclusion  in 
which  he  was  brought  up  by  his  father,  the  wonderful 
discipline  of  study  to  which  in  his  very  infancy  he  was 
subjected,  would  have  made  something  strange  and  strik- 
ing out  of  a  commonplace  nature;  and  Mill  was  in  any 
case  a  man  of  genius.     There  was  an  antique  simplicity 


The  Literature  of  the  Reigfj.     First  Survey.       62} 

and  purity  about  his  life  which  removed  him  altogether 
from  the  ways  of  ordinary  society.  But  the  defect  of  his 
teaching  as  an  ethical  guide  was  that  he  made  too  little 
allowance  for  the  influence  of  ordinary  society.  He  al- 
ways seemed  to  act  on  the  principle  that  with  true  educa- 
tion and  noble  example  the  most  commonplace  men  could 
be  persuaded  to  act  like  heroes,  and  to  act  like  heroes  al- 
ways. The  great  service  which  he  rendered  to  the  world 
in  his  "  Political  Economy"  and  his  "  System  of  Logic"  is 
of  course  independent  of  his  controverted  theories  and 
teachings.  These  works  would,  if  they  were  all  he  had 
written,  place  him  in  the  very  front  rank  of  English  thinkers 
and  instructors.  But  these  only  represent  half  of  his  in- 
fluence on  the  public  opinion  of  his  time.  His  faith  in 
the  principle  of  human  liberty  led  him  to  originate  the 
movement  for  what  is  called  the  emancipation  of  women. 
Opinions  will  doubtless  long  differ  as  to  the  advantages  of 
the  movement,  but  there  can  be  no  possible  difference  of 
judgment  as  to  the  power  and  fascination  of  Mill's  ad- 
vocacy and  the  influence  he  exercised.  He  did  not  suc- 
ceed, in  his  admirable  essay  "  On  Liberty,"  in  establishing 
the  rule  or  principle  by  which  men  may  decide  between 
the  right  of  free  expression  of  opinion  and  the  right  of 
authority  to  ordain  silence.  Probably  no  precise  boundary 
line  can  ever  be  drawn;  and  in  this,  as  in  so  much  else, 
law-makers  and  peoples  must  be  content  with  a  compro- 
mise. But  Mill's  is  at  least  a  noble  plea  for  the  fullest 
possible  liberty  of  utterance;  and  he  has  probably  carried 
the  argument  as  far  as  it  ever  can  be  carried.  There  never 
was  a  more  lucid  and  candid  reasoner.  The  m.ost  difficult 
and  abstruse  questions  became  clear  by  the  light  of  his 
luminous  exposition.  Something,  too,  of  human  interest 
and  sympathy  became  infused  into  the  most  seemingly 
arid  discussions  of  political  economy  by  the  virtue  of  his 
emotional  and  half  poetic  nature.  It  was  well  said  of  him 
that  he  reconciled  political  economy  with  human  feeling. 
His  style  was  clear  as  light.     Mill,  said  one  of  his  critics, 


6^4  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

lives  in  light.  Sometimes  his  language  rose  to  a  noble 
tind  dignified  eloquence ;  here  and  there  are  passages  of  a 
^rave,  keen  irony.  Into  the  questions  of  religious  belief 
<vhich  .arise  in  connection  with  his  works  it  is  no  part  of 
our  business  to  enter;  but  it  ma)'  be  remarked  that  his 
latest  writings  seem  to  show  that  his  views  were  undergo- 
ing much  modification  in  his  closing  years.  His  oppo- 
nents would  have  allowed  as  readily  as  his  supporters  that 
no  man  could  have  been  more  sincerely  inspired  with  a 
desire  to  arrive  at  the  truth ;  and  that  none  could  be  more 
resolute  to  follow  the  course  which  his  conscience  told  him 
to  be  right.  He  carried  this  resolute  principle  into  his 
warmest  controversies,  and  it  was  often  remarked  that  he 
usually  began  by  stating  the  case  of  the  adversary  better 
than  the  adversary  could  have  done  it  for  himself.  Ap- 
plying to  his  own  character  the  same  truthful  method  of 
inquiry  which  he  applied  to  others,  Mill  has  given  a  very 
accurate  description  of  one,  at  least,  of  the  qualities  by 
which  he  was  able  to  accomplish  so  much.  He  tells  us  in 
his  Autobiography  that  he  had  from  an  earl)'  period  con- 
sidered that  the  most  useful  part  he  could  take  in  the  do- 
main of  thought  was  that  of  an  interpreter  of  original 
thinkers,  and  mediator  between  them  and  the  public.  "  I 
had  always  a  humble  opinion  of  my  own  powers  as  an  orig- 
inal thinker,  except  in  abstract  science  (logic,  meta- 
physics, and  the  theoretic  principles  of  political  economy 
and  politics),  but  thought  myself  much  superior  to  most 
of  my  contemporaries  in  willingness  and  ability  to  learn 
from  everybody;  as  I  found  hardly  any  one  who  made 
such  a  point  of  examining  what  was  said  in  defence  of  all 
opinions,  however  new  or  however  old,  in  the  conviction 
that  even  if  they  were  errors  there  might  be  a  substratum 
of  truth  underneath  them,  and  that  in  any  case  the  dis- 
covery of  what  it  was  that  made  them  plausible  would  be 
a  benefit  to  truth."  This  was  not  assuredly  Mill's  great- 
est merit,  but  it  was,  perhaps,  his  most  peculiar  quality. 
He  was  an  original  thinker,  despite  his  own  sincere  dis- 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       625 

claimer;  but  he  founded  no  new  system.  He  could  be 
trusted  to  examine  and  expound  any  system  with  the  m.ost 
perfect  fairness  and  candor ;  and,  even  where  it  was  least 
in  harmony  with  his  own  ideas,  to  do  the  fullest  justice  to 
every  one  of  its  claims. 

Harriet  Martineau's  career  as  a  woman  of  letters  and 
a  teacher  began,  indeed,  before  the  reign  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria, but  it  was  carried  on  almost  without  interruption 
during  nearly  forty  years  of  the  reign.  She  was  political 
economist,  novelist,  historian,  biographer,  and  journalist; 
and  in  no  path  did  she  fail  to  make  her  mark.  Few  women 
could  have  turned  to  the  occupations  of  a  political  writer 
under  greater  physical  disadvantages;  and  no  man  in  this 
line  of  life,  however  well  furnished  by  nature  with  physi- 
cal and  intellectual  qualifications  for  success,  could  have 
done  better  work.  She  wrote  some  exquisite  little  stories, 
and  one  or  two  novels  of  more  ambitious  character.  It  is 
praise  enough  to  give  them  when  we  say  that,  although  fic- 
tion certainly  was  not  work  for  which  she  was  most  espe- 
cially qualified,  yet  what  she  did  seems  to  be  destined  to  live 
and  hold  a  place  in  our  literature.  She  was,  so  far  as  we 
know,  the  only  Englishwoman  who  ever  achieved  distinct 
and  great  success  as  a  writer  of  leading  articles  for  a  daily 
newspaper.  Her  strong  prejudices  and  dislikes  prevent 
her  from  being  always  regarded  as  a  trustworthy  historian. 
Her  "  History  of  the  Thirty  Years'  Peace" — for  it  may  be 
regarded  as  wholly  hers,  although  Charles  Knight  began 
it — is  a  work  full  of  vigorous  thought  and  clear  description, 
with  here  and  there  passages  of  genuine  eloquence.  But 
it  is  marred  in  its  effect  as  a  trustworthy  narrative  by  the 
manner  in  which  the  authoress  yields  here  and  there  to 
inveterate  and  wholesale  dislikes;  and  sometimes,  though 
not  so  often  or  so  markedly,  to  an  overwrought  hero-wor- 
ship. Miss  Martineau  had,  to  a  great  extent,  an  essen- 
tially masculine  mind.  She  was  often  reproached  with  be- 
ing unfeminine;  and  assuredly  she  would  have  been 
surprised  to  hear  that  there  was  anything  womanish  in 
Vol.  I. — 40 


G2(>  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

her  way  of  criticising  public  events  and  men.  Yet  in 
reading  her  "  History"  one  is  sometimes  amused  to  find 
that  that  partisanship  which  is  commonly  set  down  as  a 
specially  feminine  quality  affects  her  estimate  of  a  states- 
man. Hers  is  not  by  any  means  the  Carlylean  way  of 
starting  with  a  theory  and  finding  all  virtue  and  glory  in 
the  man  who  seems  to  embody  it,  and  all  baseness  and 
stupidity  in  his  opponents.  But  when  she  takes  a  dislike 
to  a  particular  individual,  she  seems  to  assume  that  where 
he  was  wrong  he  must  have  been  wrong  of  set  malign 
purpose,  and  that  where  he  chanced  to  be  in  the  right  it 
was  in  mistake,  and  in  despite  of  his  own  greater  inclina- 
tion to  be  in  the  wrong.  It  is  fortunate  that  these  dislikes 
are  not  many,  and  also  that  they  soon  show  themselves, 
and  therefore  cease  to  be  seriously  misleading.  In  all 
other  respects  the  book  well  deserves  careful  study.  The 
life  of  the  woman  is  a  study  still  more  deeply  interesting. 
Others  of  her  sex  there  were  of  greater  genius,  even  in 
her  own  time ;  but  no  Englishwoman  ever  followed  with 
such  perseverance  and  success  a  career  of  literary  and 
political  labor. 

"  The  blue-peter  has  long  been  flying  at  my  foremast, 
and,  now  that  I  am  in  my  ninety-second  year,  I  must  soon 
expect  the  signal  for  sailing."  In  this  quaint  and  cheery 
way  Mary  Somerville,  many  years  after  the  period  at 
which  we  have  now  arrived  in  this  work,  described  her 
condition  and  her  quiet  waiting  for  death.  No  one  -surely 
could  have  better  earned  the  right  to  die  by  the  labors  of 
a  long  life  devoted  to  the  education  and  the  improvement 
of  her  kind.  Mary  Somerville  has  probably  no  rival 
among  women  as  a  scientific  scholar.  Her  summary  of 
Laplace's  "  Mecanique  Celeste,"  her  treatise  on  the  "  Con- 
nection of  the  Physical  Sciences,"  and  her  "Physical 
Geography,"  would  suffice  to  place  any  student,  man  or 
woman,  in  the  foremost  rank  of  scientific  expounders. 
The  "  Physical  Geography"  is  the  only  one  of  Mrs.  Somer- 
ville's  remarkable  works  which  was  published  in  the  reign 


The  Uterature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       627 

of  Queen  Victoria,  but  the  publication  of  the  other  two 
preceded  the  opening  of  the  reign  by  so  short  a  time,  and 
her  career  and  her  fame  so  entirely  belong  to  the  Victorian 
period,  that,  even  if  the  "  Physical  Geography"  had  never 
been  published,  she  must  be  included  in  this  history.  "  I 
was  intensely  ambitious,"  Mrs.  Somerville  says  of  herself 
in  her  earlier  days,  "  to  excel  in  something,  for  I  felt  in 
my  own  breast  that  women  were  capable  of  taking  a 
higher  place  in  creation  than  that  assigned  to  them  in  my 
early  days,  which  was  very  low."  It  is  not  exaggeration 
to  say  that  Mrs.  Somerville  distinctly  raised  the  world's 
estimate  of  woman's  capacity  for  the  severest  and  the  lof- 
tiest scientific  pursuits.  She  possessed  the  most  extraordi- 
nary power  of  concentration,  amounting  to  an  entire  ab- 
sorption in  the  subject  which  she  happened  to  be  studying, 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  disturbing  sights  and  sounds.  She 
had  in  a  supreme  degree  that  which  Carlyle  calls  the  first 
quality  of  genius,  an  immense  capacity  for  taking  trouble. 
She  had  also,  happily  for  herself,  an  immense  capacity  for 
finding  enjoyment  in  almost  everything:  in  new  places, 
people,  and  thoughts,  in  the  old  familiar  scenes  and  friends 
and  associations.  Hers  was  a  noble,  calm,  fully-rounded 
life.  She  worked  as  steadfastly  and  as  eagerly  in  her 
scientific  studies  as  Harriet  Martineau  did  with  her  eco- 
nomics and  her  politics;  but  she  had  a  more  cheery,  less 
sensitive,  less  eager  and  impatient  nature  than  Harriet 
Martineau.  She  was  able  to  pursue  her  most  intricate 
calculations  after  she  had  passed  her  ninetieth  year;  and 
one  of  her  chief  regrets  in  d3'ing  was  that  she  should  not 
"  live  to  see  the  distance  of  the  earth  from  the  sun  deter- 
mined by  the  transit  of  Venus,  and  the  source  of  the  most 
renowned  of  rivers,  the  discovery  of  which  will  immortal- 
ize the  name  of  Dr.  Livingstone." 

The  paths  of  the  two  poets  who  first  sprang  into  fame 
in  the  present  reign  are  strangely  remote  from  each  other. 
Mr.  Tennyson  and  Mr.  Browning  are  as  unlike  in  style 
and  choice  of  subject,  and  indeed  in  the  v/hole  spirit  of 


628  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

their  poetry,  as  Wordsworth  and  Byron.  Mr.  Tennyson 
deals  with  incident  and  picturesque  form,  and  graceful 
legend,  and  with  so  much  of  doubt  and  thought  and  yearn- 
ing melancholy  as  would  belong  to  a  refined  and  cultured 
intellect  under  no  greater  stress  or  strain  than  the  ordinary 
chances  of  life  among  educated  Englishmen  might  be  ex- 
pected to  impose.  He  has  revived  with  great  success  the 
old  Arthurian  legends,  and  made  them  a  part  of  the  living 
literature  of  England.  But  the  knights  and  ladies  whom 
he  paints  are  refined,  graceful,  noble,  without  roughness, 
without  wild  or,  at  all  events,  complex  and  distracting 
passions.  It  may  perhaps  be  said  that  Tennyson  has  taken 
for  his  province  all  the  beauty,  all  the  nobleness,  all  the 
feeling  that  lie  near  to  or  on  the  surface  of  life  and  of  na- 
ture. His  object  might  seem  to  be  that  which  Lessing  de- 
clared the  true  object  of  all  art,  "to  delight;"  but  it  is  to 
delight  in  a  somewhat  narrower  sense  than  was  the  mean- 
ing of  Lessing.  Beauty,  melancholy,  and  repose  are  the 
elements  of  Tennyson's  poetry.  There  is  no  storm,  no 
conflict,  no  complication.  Mr.  Browning,  on  the  other 
hand,  delights  in  perplexed  problems  of  character  and 
life — in  studying  the  effects  of  strange  contrasting  forces 
of  passion  coming  into  play  under  peculiar  and  distracting 
conditions.  All  that  lies  beneath  the  surface ;  all  that  is 
out  of  the  common  track  of  emotion ;  all  that  is  possible, 
that  is  poetically  conceivable,  but  that  the  outer  air  and 
the  daily  walks  of  life  never  see,  this  is  what  specially  at- 
tracts Mr.  Browning.  In  Tennyson  a  knight  of  King 
Arthur's  mythical  court  has  the  emotions  of  a  polished 
English  gentleman  of  our  day,  and  nothing  more.  Mr. 
Browning  would  prefer,  in  treating  of  a  polished  English 
gentleman  of  our  day,  to  exhibit  him  under  some  condi- 
tions which  should  draw  out  in  him  all  the  strange  ele- 
mentary passions  and  complications  of  emotion  that  lie  far 
down  in  deeps  below  the  surface  of  the  best  ordered  civil- 
ization. The  tendency  of  the  one  poet  is  naturally  to  fall 
now  and  then  into  the  sweetly  insipid;  of  the  other,  to 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       62(^ 

wander  away  into  the  tangled  regions  of  the  grotesque.  It 
is,  perhaps,  only  natural  that  under  such  conditions  the 
one  poet  should  be  profoundly  concerned  for  beauty  of 
form,  and  the  latter  almost  absolutely  indifferent  to  it. 
No  poet  has  more  finished  beauty  of  style  and  exquisite 
charm  of  melody  than  Tennyson.  None  certainly  can  be 
more  often  wanting  in  grace  of  form  and  delight  of  soft 
sound  than  Mr.  Browning.  There  are  many  passages  and 
even  many  poems  of  Browning  which  show  that  the  poet 
could  be  melodious  if  he  would ;  but  he  seems  sometimes 
as  if  he  took  a  positive  delight  in  perplexing  the  reader's 
ear  with  harsh,  untuneful  sounds.  Mr.  Browning  com- 
monly allov/s  the  study  of  the  purely  psychological  to  ab- 
sorb too  much  of  his  moods  and  of  his  genius.  It  has  a 
fascination  for  him  which  he  is  seemingly  unable  to  resist. 
He  makes  of  his  poems  too  often  mere  searchings  into 
strange  deeps  of  human  character  and  human  error.  He 
seldom  abandons  himself  altogether  to  the  inspiration  of 
the  poet;  he  hardly  ever  deserves  the  definition  of  the 
minstrel  given  in  Goethe's  ballad  who  "sings  but  as  the 
song-bird  sings."  Moreover,  Mr.  Browning  has  an  almost 
morbid  taste  for  the  grotesque;  he  is  not  unfrequently  a 
sort  of  poetic  Callot.  It  has  to  be  added  that  Mr.  Brown- 
ing is  seldom  easy  to  understand,  and  that  there  are  times 
when  he  is  only  to  be  understood  at  the  expense  of  as 
much  thought  and  study  as  one  might  give  to  a  contro- 
verted passage  in  an  ancient  author.  This  is  a  defect  of 
art,  and  a  very  serious  defect.  The  more  devoted  of  Mr. 
Browning's  admirers  will  tell  us,  no  doubt,  that  the  poet 
is  not  bound  to  supply  us  with  brains  as  well  as  poetry, 
and  that  if  we  cannot  understand  what  he  says  it  is  the 
fault  simply  of  our  stupidity.  But  an  ordinary  man  who 
finds  that  he  can  understand  Shakespeare  and  Milton, 
Dryden  and  Wordsworth,  B3'ron  and  Keats  without  any 
trouble,  may  surely  be  excused  if  he  does  not  set  down  his 
difficulty  about  some  of  Browning's  poems  wholly  to  the 
account  of   his  own  dulness.      It  may  well  be  doubted 


630  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

whether  there  is  any  idea  so  subtle  that  if  the  poet  can 
actually  realize  it  in  his  own  mind  clearly  for  himself,  the 
English  language  will  not  be  found  capable  of  expressing 
it  with  sufficient  clearness.  The  language  has  been  made 
to  do  this  for  the  most  refined  reasonings  of  philosophical 
schools,  for  transcendentalists  and  utilitarians,  for  psy- 
chologists and  metaphysicians.  No  intelligent  person 
feels  any  difficulty  in  understanding  what  Mill,  or  Herbert 
vSpencer,  or  Huxley  means;  and  it  can  hardly  be  said  that 
the  ideas  Mr.  Browning  desires  to  convey  to  his  readers 
are  more  difficult  of  exposition  than  some  of  those  which 
the  authors  we  name  have  contrived  to  set  out  with  a  white 
light  of  clearness  all  round  them.  The  plain  truth  is  that 
Mr.  Browning  is  a  great  poet,  in  spite  of  some  of  the  worst 
defects  that  ever  stood  between  a  poet  and  popularity. 
He  is  a  great  poet  by  virtue  of  his  commanding  genius, 
his  fearless  imagination,  his  penetrating  pathos.  He 
strikes  an  iron  harp-string.  In  certain  of  his  moods  his 
poetry  is  like  that  of  the  terrible  lyre  in  the  weird  old 
Scottish  ballad,  the  lyre  that  was  made  of  the  murdered 
maiden's  breastbone,  and  which  told  its  fearful  story  in 
tones  "  that  would  melt  a  heart  of  stone. "  In  strength  and 
depth  of  passion  and  pathos,  in  wild  humor,  in  emotion  of 
every  kind,  Mr.  Browning  is  much  superior  to  Mr.  Tenny- 
son. The  poet-laureate  is  the  completer  man.  Mr. 
Tennyson  is,  beyond  doubt,  the  most  complete  of  the 
poets  of  Queen  Victoria's  time.  No  one  else  has  the  same 
combination  of  melody,  beauty  of  description,  culture,  and 
intellectual  power.  He  has  sweetness  and  strength  in  ex- 
quisite combination.  If  a  just  balance  of  poetic  powers 
were  to  be  the  crown  of  a  poet,  then  undoubtedly  Mr. 
Tennyson  must  be  proclaimed  the  greatest  English  poet 
of  our  time.  The  reader's  estimate  of  Browning  and 
Tennyson  will  probably  be  decided  by  his  predilection  for 
the  higher  effort  or  for  the  more  perfect  art.  Browning's 
is  surely  the  higher  aim  in  poetic  art;  but  of  the  art  which 
he   essays   Tennyson    is   by   far    the    completer   master. 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       631 

Tennyson  has,  undoubtedly,  thrown  away  much  of  his 
sweetness  and  his  exquisite  grace  of  form  on  mere  triflings 
and  pretty  conceits;  and  perhaps  as  a  retribution  those 
poems  of  his  which  are  most  familiar  in  the  popular  mouth 
are  just  those  which  least  do  justice  to  his  genuine  strength 
and  intellect.  The  cheap  sentiment  of  "  Lady  Clara  Vere 
deVere,"the  yet  cheaper  pathos  of  "  The  May  Queen," 
are  in  the  minds  of  thousands  the  choicest  representation 
of  the  genius  of  the  poet  who  wrote  "  In  Memoriam"  and 
the  "  Morte  d' Arthur."  Mr.  Browning,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  chosen  to  court  the  approval  of  his  time  on  terms  of 
such  disadvantage  as  an  orator  might  who  insisted  in  ad- 
dressing an  assemblage  in  some  tongue  which  they  but 
imperfectly  understood.  It  is  the  fault  of  Mr.  Browning 
himself  if  he  has  for  his  only  audience  and  admirers  men 
and  women  of  culture,  and  misses  altogether  that  broad 
public  audience  to  which  most  poets  have  chosen  to  sing, 
and  which  all  true  poets,  one  would  think,  must  desire  to 
reach  with  their  song.  It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  assuredly 
Mr.  Tennyson's  fault  if  he  has  by  his  too  frequent  con- 
descension to  the  drawing-room,  and  even  the  young 
ladies'  school,  made  men  and  women  of  culture  forget  for 
the  moment  his  best  things,  and  credit  him  with  no  higher 
gift  than  that  of  singing  "  virginibus  puerisque."  One 
quality  ought  to  be  mentioned  as  common  to  these  two 
poets  who  have  so  little  else  in  common.  They  are  both 
absolutely  faithful  to  nature  and  truth  in  their  pictures  of 
the  earth  and  its  scenes  and  seasons.  Almost  all  the  great 
poets  of  the  past  age,  even  including  Wordsworth  himself, 
were  now  and  then  content  to  generalize  nature ;  to  take 
some  things  for  granted;  to  use  their  memory,  or  the 
eyes  of  others,  rather  than  their  own  eyes,  when  they  had 
to  describe  changes  on  leaf,  or  sky,  or  water.  It  is  the 
characteristic  of  Tennyson  and  Browning  that  they  deal 
with  nature  in  a  spirit  of  the  most  faithful  loyalty.  Not 
the  branch  of  a  tree,  nor  the  cry  of  a  bird,  nor  the  shifting 
colors  on  sea  or  sky  will  be  found  described  on  their  pages 


6)2  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

otherwise  than  as  the  eye  sees  for  itself  at  the  season  of 
which  the  poet  tells.  In  reading  Tennyson's  description 
of  woodland  and  forest  scenes  one  might  almost  fancy  that 
he  can  catch  the  exact  peculiarities  of  sound  in  the  rustling 
and  moaning  of  each  separate  tree.  In  some  of  Mr. 
Browning's  pictures  of  Italian  scenery  every  detail  is  so 
perfect  that  many  a  one  journeying  along  an  Italian  road 
and  watching  the  little  mouse-colored  cattle  as  they 
drink  at  the  stream  may  for  the  moment  almost  feel  un- 
certain whether  he  is  looking  on  a  page  of  living  reality 
or  recalling  to  memory  a  page  from  the  author  of  "  The 
Ring  and  the  Book."  The  poets  seem  to  have  returned 
to  the  fresh  simplicity  of  a  far-distant  age  of  poetry,  when 
a  man  described  exactly  what  he  saw,  and  was  put  to  de- 
scribing it  because  he  saw  it.  In  most  of  the  intermediate 
times  a  poet  describes  because  some  other  poet  has  de- 
scribed before,  and  has  said  that  in  nature  there  are  such 
and  such  beautiful  things  which  every  true  poet  must  see, 
and  is  bound  to  acknowledge  accordingly  in  his  verse. 

These  two  are  the  greatest  of  our  poets  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  reign;  indeed,  in  the  reign  early  or  late  so  far. 
But  there  are  other  poets  also  of  whom  we  must  take  ac- 
count. Mrs.  Browning  has  often  been  described  as  the 
greatest  poetess  of  whom  we  know  anything  since  Sappho. 
This  description,  however,  seems  to  carry  with  it  a  much 
higher  degree  of  praise  than  it  really  bears.  It  has  to  be 
remembered  that  there  is  no  great  poetess  of  whom  we 
know  anything  from  the  time  of  Sappho  to  that  of  Mrs, 
Browning.  In  England  we  have  hardly  had  any  woman 
but  Mrs.  Browning  alone  who  really  deserves  to  rank  with 
poets.  She  takes  a  place  altogether  different  from  that  of 
any  Mrs,  Hemans,  or  such  singer  of  sweet,  mild,  and  in- 
nocent note.  Mrs.  Browning  would  rank  highly  among 
poets  without  any  allowance  being  claimed  for  her  sex. 
But  estimated  in  this  way,  which  assuredly  she  would  have 
chosen  for  herself,  she  can  hardly  be  admitted  to  stand 
with  the  foremost  even  of  our  modern  day.     She  is  one  of 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       6)} 

the  most  sympathetic  of  poets.  She  speaks  to  the  hearts 
of  numbers  of  readers  who  think  Tennyson  all  too  sweet, 
smooth,  and  trivial,  and  Robert  Browning  harsh  and 
rugged.  She  speaks  especially  to  the  emotional  in  woman. 
In  all  moods  when  men  or  women  are  distracted  by  the 
bewildering  conditions  of  life,  when  they  feel  themselves 
alternately  dazzled  by  its  possibilities  and  baffled  by  its 
limitations,  the  poems  of  Elizabeth  Browning  ought  to 
find  sympathetic  ears.  But  the  poems  are  not  the  highest 
which  merely  appeal  to  our  own  moods  and  echo  our  own 
plaints;  and  there  was  not  much  of  creative  genius  in 
Mrs.  Browning.  Her  poems  are  often  but  a  prolonged 
sob;  a  burst  of  almost  hysterical  remonstrance  or  entreaty. 
It  must  be  owned,  however,  that  the  egotism  of  emotion 
has  seldom  found  such  exquisite  form  of  outpouring  as 
in  her  so-called  "  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese;"  and  that 
what  the  phraseology  of  a  school  would  call  the  emotion 
of  "  altruism"  has  rarely  been  given  forth  in  tones  of  such 
piercing  pathos  as  in  "The  Cry  of  the  Children." 

Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  reputation  was  made  before  this 
earlier  period  had  closed.  He  is  a  maker  of  such  exquisite 
and  thoughtful  verse  that  it  is  hard  sometimes  to  question 
his  title  to  be  considered  a  genuine  poet.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  likely  that  the  very  grace  and  culture  and 
thoughtfulness  of  his  style  inspire  in  many  the  first  doubt 
of  his  claim  to  the  name  of  poet.  Where  the  art  is  evi- 
dent and  elaborate,  we  are  all  too  apt  to  assume  that  it  is 
all  art  and  not  genius.  Mr.  Arnold  is  a  sort  of  miniature 
Goethe ;  we  do  not  know  that  his  most  ardent  admirers 
could  demand  a  higher  praise  for  him,  while  it  is  proba- 
ble that  the  description  will  suggest  exactly  the  intellect- 
ual peculiarities  which  lead  so  many  to  deny  him  a  place 
with  the  really  inspired  singers  of  his  day.  Of  the  three 
men  whom  we  have  named,  we  should  be  inclined  to  say 
that  Mr.  Arnold  made  the  very  most  of  his  powers,  and 
Mr.  Browning  the  very  least.  Mr.  Arnold  is  a  critic  as 
well  as  a  poet:  there  are  many  who  relish  him  more  in 


6^4  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  critic  than  in  the  poet.  In  literary  criticism  his  judg- 
ment is  refined,  and  his  aims  are  always  high  if  his  range 
be  not  very  wide;  in  politics  and  theology  he  is  somewhat 
apt  to  be  at  once  fastidious  and  fantastic. 

The  "  Song  of  the  Shirt"  would  give  Thomas  Hood  a 
technical  right,  if  he  had  none  other,  to  be  classed  as  a 
poet  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  The  "  Song  of  the 
Shirt"  was  published  in  Punch  when  the  reign  was  well 
on;  and  after  it  appeared,  *' The  Bridge  of  Sighs;"  and  no 
two  of  Hood's  poems  have  done  more  to  make  him  famous. 
He  was  a  genuine  though  not  a  great  poet,  in  whom  hu- 
mor was  most  properly  to  be  defined  as  Thackeray  has  de- 
fined it — the  blending  of  love  and  wit.  The  "  Song  of  the 
Shirt"  and  the  "  Bridge  of  Sighs"  made  themselves  a  kind 
of  monumental  place  in  English  sympathies.  The  "  Plea 
of  the  Midsummer  Fairies"  was  written  several  years  be- 
fore. It  alone  would  have  made  for  its  author  a  reputa- 
tion. The  ballad  of  "  Fair  Inez"  is  almost  perfect  in  its 
way.  The  name  of  Sir  Henry  Taylor  must  be  included 
with  the  poets  of  this  reign,  although  his  best  work  was 
done  before  the  reign  began.  In  his  work,  clear,  strong 
intelligence  prevails  more  than  the  emotional  and  the  sen- 
suous. He  makes  himself  a  poet  by  virtue  of  intellect  and 
artistic  judgment;  for  there  really  do  seem  some  examples 
of  a  poet  being  made  and  not  born.  We  can  hardly  bring 
Procter  among  the  Victorian  poets.  Macaulay's  ringing 
verses  are  rather  the  splendid  and  successful  tours  de  force 
of  a  clever  man  than  the  genuine  lyrics  of  a  poet.  Arthur 
Clough  was  a  man  of  rare  promise,  whose  lamp  was  extin- 
guished all  too  soon.  Philip  James  Bailey  startled  the 
world  by  his  "  Festus,"  and  for  a  time  made  people  believe 
that  a  great  new  poet  was  coming;  but  the  impression  did 
not  last,  and  Bailey  proved  to  be  little  more  than  the 
comet  of  a  season.  A  spasmodic  school  which  sprang  up 
after  the  success  of  "  Festus,"  and  which  was  led  by  a  bril- 
liant young  Scotchman,  Alexander  Smith,  passed  away  in 
a  spasm  as  it  came,  and  is  now  almost  forgotten.     "  Orion, " 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.        63=) 

an  epic  poem  by  Richard  H.  Home,  made  a  very  distinct 
mark  upon  the  time.  Home  proved  himself  to  be  a  sort 
of  Landor  manqud — or  perhaps  a  connecting  link  between 
the  style  of  Landor  and  that  of  Browning.  The  earlier 
part  of  the  reign  was  rich  in  singers ;  but  the  names  and 
careers  of  most  of  them  would  serve  rather  to  show  that 
the  poetic  spirit  was  abroad,  and  that  it  sought  expression 
in  all  manner  of  forms,  than  that  there  were  many  poets 
to  dispute  the  place  with  Tennyson  and  Browning.  It  is 
not  necessary  here  to  record  a  list  of  mere  names.  The 
air  was  filled  with  the  voices  of  minor  singers.  It  was 
pleasant  to  listen  to  their  piping,  and  the  general  effect 
may  well  be  commended;  but  it  is  not  necessary  that  the 
names  of  all  the  performers  in  an  orchestra  should  be  re- 
corded for  the  supposed  gratification  of  a  posterity  which 
assuredly  would  never  stop  to  read  the  list. 

Thirty-six  years  have  passed  away  since  Mr.  Ruskin 
leaped  into  the  literary  arena,  with  a  spring  as  bold  and 
startling  as  that  of  Kean  on  the  Kemble-haunted  stage. 
The  little  volume,  so  modest  in  its  appearance  and  self- 
sufficient  in  its  tone,  which  the  author  defiantly  flung  down 
like  a  gage  of  battle  before  the  world,  was  entitled, 
"  Modern  Painters ;  their  superiority  in  the  art  of  Land- 
scape-painting to  all  the  Ancient  Masters ;  by  a  Graduate 
of  Oxford."  It  was  a  challenge  to  established  beliefs  and 
prejudices ;  and  the  challenge  was  delivered  in  the  tone 
of  one  who  felt  confident  that  he  could  make  good  his 
words  against  any  and  all  opponents.  If  there  was  one 
thing  that  more  than  another  seemed  to  have  been  fixed 
and  rooted  in  the  English  mind  it  was  that  Claude  and 
one  or  two  others  of  the  old  masters  possessed  the  secret  of 
landscape-painting.  When,  therefore,  a  bold  young 
dogmatist  involved  in  one  common  denunciation  "  Claude, 
Caspar  Poussin,  Salvator  Rosa,  Ruysdael,  Paul  Potter, 
Canaletto,  and  the  various  Van-somethings  and  Koek- 
somethings,  more  specially  and  malignantly  those  who 
have  libelled  the  sea,"  it  was  no  wonder  that  affronted  au- 


636  A  History  of  Our  Ovju  Times. 

thority  raised  its  indignant  voice  and  thundered   at  him. 
Affronted  authority,  however,  gained  little  by  its  thunder. 
The  young  Oxford  Graduate  possessed,  along  with  genius 
and  profound  conviction,  an  imperturbable  and  magnifi- 
cent self-conceit  against  which  the  surges  of  angry  criti- 
cism dashed  themselves  in  vain.     Mr.  Ruskin  sprang  into 
literary  life  simply  as  a  vindicator  of  the  fame  and  genius 
of  Turner.     But  as  he  went  on  with  his  task  he  found,  or 
at  least  he  convinced  himself,  that  the  vindication  of  the 
great  landscape-painter  was  essentially  a  vindication  of  all 
true  art.     Still  further  proceeding  with  his  self-imposed 
task,  he  persuaded  himself  that  the  cause  of  true  art  was 
identical  with  the  cause  of  truth,  and  that  truth,  from  Rus- 
kin's  point  of  view,  enclosed  in  the  same  rules  and  prin- 
ciples all  the  morals,  all  the  science,  industry,  and  daily 
business  of  life.     Therefore  from  an  art-critic  he  became 
a  moralist,  a  political  economist,  a  philosopher,  a  states- 
man, a  preacher — anything,  everything  that  human  intel- 
ligence can  impel  a  man  to  be.     All  that  he  has  written 
since  his  first  appeal  to  the  public  has  been  inspired  by 
this  conviction — that  an  appreciation   of  the  truth  in  art 
reveals  to  him  who  has  it  the  truth  in  everything.     This 
belief  has  been  the  source  of  Mr.  Ruskin 's  greatest  suc- 
cesses, and  of  his  most  complete   and  ludicrous  failures. 
It  has  made  him  the  admiration  of  the  world  one  week, 
and  the  object  of  its  placid  pity  or  broad  laughter  the  next. 
A  being  who  could  be  Joan  of  Arc  to-day  and  Voltaire's 
Pucelle  to  morrow  would  hardly  exhibit  a  stronger  psy- 
chical paradox  than  the  eccentric  genius  of  Mr.  Ruskin 
sometimes  illustrates.     But  in  order  to  do  him  justice,  and 
not  to  regard  him  as  a  mere  erratic  utterer  of  eloquent 
contradictions,  poured  out  on  the  impulse  of  each  moment's 
new  freak  of  fancy,  we  must  always  bear  in  mind  the  fun- 
damental faith  of  the  man.     Extravagant  as  this  or  that 
doctrine  may  be,  outrageous  as  to-day's  contradiction  of 
yesterday's  assertion  may  sound,  yet  the  whole  career  is 
consistent  with  its  essential  principles  and  beliefs.     It  may 


The  Literature  of  the  Rei'gn.      ^t'rst  Survey.        637 

be  fairly  questioned  whether  Mr.  Ruskin  has  any  great 
qualities  but  his  eloquence  and  his  true,  honest  love  of  na- 
ture. As  a  man  to  stand  up  before  a  society  of  which  one 
part  was  fashionably  languid  and  the  other  part  only  too 
busy  and  greedy,  and  preach  to  it  of  Nature's  immortal 
beauty,  and  of  the  true  way  to  do  her  reverence,  Ruskin 
has  and  had  a  position  of  genuine  dignity.  This  ought  to 
be  enough  for  the  work  and  for  the  praise  of  any  n>an. 
But  the  restlessness  of  Ruskin's  temperament,  combiled 
with  the  extraordinary  self-sufficiency  which  contributed 
so  much  to  his  success  where  he  was  master  of  a  subject, 
sent  him  perpetually  intruding  into  fields  where  he  was 
unfit  to  labor,  and  enterprises  which  he  had  no  capacity 
to  conduct.  Seldom  has  a  man  contradicted  himself  so 
often,  so  recklessly,  and  so  complacently  as  Mr.  Ruskin. 
It  is  venturesome  to  call  him  a  great  critic  even  in  art,  for 
he  seldom  expresses  any  opinion  one  day  without  flatly 
contradicting  it  the  next.  He  is  a  great  writer,  as  Rous- 
seau was — fresh,  eloquent,  audacious,  writing  out  of  the 
fulness  of  the  present  mood,  and  heedless  how  far  the  im- 
pulse of  to-day  may  contravene  that  of  yesterday.  But  as 
Rousseau  was  always  faithful  to  his  idea  of  truth,  so  Rus- 
kin is  always  faithful  to  Nature.  When  all  his  errors,  and 
paradoxes,  and  contradictions  shall  have  been  utterly  for- 
gotten, this  will  remain  to  his  praise.  No  man  since 
Wordsworth's  brightest  days  did  half  so  much  to  teach  his 
countrymen,  and  those  who  speak  his  language,  how  to 
appreciate  and  honor  that  silent  Nature  "  which  never  did 
betray  the  heart  that  loved  her." 

In  fiction  as  well  as  in  poetry  there  are  two  great  names 
to  be  compared  or  contrasted  when  we  turn  to  the  litera- 
ture of  the  earlier  part  of  the  reign.  In  the  very  year  of 
Queen  Victoria's  accession  appeared  the  "  Pickwick 
Papers,"  the  work  of  the  author  who  the  year  before  had 
published  the  "  Sketches  by  Boz. "  The  public  soon  rec- 
ognized the  fact  that  a  new  and  wonderfully  original  force 
had  come  into  literature.     The  success  of  Charles  Dickens 


638  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

is  absolutely  unequalled  in  the  history  of  English  fiction. 
At  the  season  of  his  highest  popularity  Sir  Walter  Scott 
was  not  so  popular  an  author.  But  that  happened  to  Dick- 
ens which  did  not  happen  to  Scott.  When  Dickens  was 
at  his  zenith,  and  when  it  might  have  been  thought  that 
any  manner  of  rivalry  with  him  was  impossible,  a  literary 
man  who  was  no  longer  young,  who  had  been  working 
with  but  moderate  success  for  many  years  in  light  litera- 
ture, suddenly  took  to  writing  novels,  and  almost  in  a  mo- 
ment stepped  up  to  a  level  with  the  author  of  "  Pickwick." 
During  the  remainder  of  their  careers  the  two  men  stood 
as  nearly  as  possible  on  the  same  level.  Dickens  always 
remained  by  far  the  more  popular  of  the  two;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  may  be  safely  said  that  the  opinion  of  the 
literary  world  in  general  was  inclined  to  favor  Thackeray. 
From  the  time  of  the  publication  of  "Vanity  Fair"  the  two 
were  always  put  side  by  side  for  comparison  or  contrast. 
They  have  been  sometimes  likened  to  Fielding  and  Smol- 
lett, but  no  comparison  could  be  more  misleading  or  less 
happy.  Smollett  stands  on  a  level  distinctly  and  consid- 
erably below  that  of  Fielding;  but  Dickens  cannot  be  said 
to  stand  thus  beneath  Thackeray.  If  the  comparison  were 
to  hold  at  all,  Thackeray  must  be  compared  to  Fielding, 
for  Fielding  is  not  in  the  least  like  Dickens;  but  then  it 
must  be  allowed  that  vSniollett  wants  many  of  the  higher 
qualities  of  the  author  of  "  David  Copperfield. "  It  is  nat- 
ural that  men  should  compare  Dickens  and  Thackeray; 
but  the  two  will  be  found  to  be  curiously  unlike  when  once 
a  certain  superficial  resemblance  ceases  to  impress  the 
mind.  Their  ways  of  treating  a  subject  were  not  only 
dissimilar,  but  were  absolutely  in  contrast.  They  started, 
to  begin  with,  under  the  influence  of  a  totally  different 
philosophy  of  life,  if  that  is  to  be  called  a  philosophy  which 
was  probably  only  the  result  of  peculiarity  of  temperament 
in  each  case.  Dickens  set  out  on  the  literary  theory  that 
in  life  everything  is  better  than  it  looks;  Thackeray  with 
the  impression  that  it  is  worse.     In  the  one  case  there  v/as 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.        639 

somewhat  too  much  of  a  mechanical  interpretation  of 
everything  for  the  best  in  the  best  possible  world ;  in  the 
other,  the  savor  of  cynicism  was  at  times  a  little  annoying. 
As  each  writer  went  on,  the  peculiarity  became  more  and 
more  of  a  mannerism.  But  the  writings  of  Dickens  were 
far  more  deeply  influenced  b)''  his  peculiarities  of  feeling 
or  philosophy  than  those  of  Thackeray.  A  large  share  of 
the  admiration  which  is  popularly  given  to  Dickens  is, 
undoubtedly,  a  tribute  to  what  people  consider  his  cheer- 
ful view  of  life.  In  that,  too,  he  is  especially  English. 
In  this  country  the  artistic  theory  of  France  and  other  Con- 
tinental nations,  borrowed  from  the  aesthetic  principles  of 
Greece,  which  accords  the  palm  to  the  artistic  treatment 
rather  than  to  the  subject,  or  the  purpose,  or  the  way  of 
looking  at  things,  has  found  hardly  any  broad  and  general 
acceptation.  The  popularity  of  Dickens  was,  therefore, 
in  great  measure  due  to  the  fact  that  he  set  forth  life  in 
cheerful  lights  and  colors.  He  had,  of  course,  gifts  of  far 
higher  artistic  value ;  he  could  describe  anything  that  he 
saw  with  a  fidelity  which  Balzac  could  not  have  surpassed; 
and,  like  Balzac,  he  had  a  way  of  inspiring  inanimate  ob- 
jects with  a  mystery  and  motive  of  their  own,  which  gave 
them  often  a  weird  and  fascinating  individuality.  But  it 
must  be  owned  that  if  Dickens'  peculiar  "philosophy" 
were  effaced  from  his  works,  the  fame  of  the  author  would 
remain  a  very  different  thing  from  what  it  is  at  the  pres- 
ent moment.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  possible  to 
cut  out  of  Thackeray  all  his  little  cynical,  melancholy  sen- 
tences, and  reduce  his  novels  to  bare  descriptions  of  life 
and  character,  without  affecting,  in  any  sensible  degree, 
his  influence  on  the  reader  or  his  position  in  literature. 
Thackeray  had  a  marvellously  keen  appreciation  of  human 
motive  and  character  within  certain  limits.  If  Dickens 
could  draw  an  old  quaint  house  or  an  odd  family  interior 
as  faithfully  and  yet  as  picturesquely  as  Balzac,  so,  on  the 
other  hand,  not  Balzac  himself  could  analyze  and  illus- 
trate the  weaknesses  and  foibles  of  certain  types  of  char* 


640  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

acter  with  greater  subtlety  of  judgment  and  force  of 
exposition  than  Thackeray.  Dickens  had  little  or  no 
knowledge  of  human  character,  and  evidently  cared  very 
little  about  the  study.  His  stories  are  fairy  tales  made 
credible  by  the  masterly  realism  with  which  he  described 
all  the  surroundings  and  accessories,  the  costumes  and  the 
ways  of  his  men  and  women.  While  we  are  reading  of  a 
man  whose  odd  peculiarities  strike  us  with  a  sense  of  real- 
ity as  if  we  had  observed  them  for  ourselves  many  a  time, 
while  we  see  him  surrounded  by  streets  and  houses  which 
seem  to  us  rather  more  real  and  a  hundred  times  more  in- 
teresting than  those  through  which  we  pass  every  day,  we 
are  not  likely  to  observe  very  quickly,  or  to  take  much 
heed  of  the  fact  when  we  do  observe  it,  that  the  man  acts 
on  various  important  occasions  of  his  life  as  only  people 
in  fairy  stories  ever  do  act.  Thackeray,  on  the  other 
hand,  cared  little  for  descriptions  of  externals.  He  left  his 
readers  to  construct  for  themselves  the  greater  part  of  the 
surroundings  of  his  personages  from  his  description  of  the 
characters  of  the  personages  themselves.  He  made  us  ac- 
quainted with  the  man  or  woman  in  his  chapters  as  if  we 
had  known  him  or  her  all  our  life ;  and  knowing  Penden- 
nis  or  Becky  Sharp,  we  had  no  difficulty  in  constructing 
the  surroundings  of  either  for  ourselves.  Thus  it  will  be 
seen  that  these  two  eminent  authors  had  not  only  differ- 
ent ideas  about  life,  but  absolutely  contrasting  principles 
of  art.  One  worked  from  the  externals  inward ;  the  other 
realized  the  unseen,  and  left  the  externals  to  grow  of  them- 
selves. Three  great  peculiarities,  however,  they  shared. 
Each  lived  and  wrote  of  and  for  London.  Dickens  created 
for  art  the  London  of  the  middle  and  poorer  classes ;  Thack- 
eray did  the  same  for  the  London  of  the  upper  class,  and 
for  those  who  strive  to  imitate  their  ways.  Neither  ever 
even  attempted  to  describe  a  man  kept  constantly  above 
and  beyond  the  atmosphere  of  mere  egotism  by  some  sus- 
taining greatness  or  even  intensity  of  purpose.  In  Dick- 
ens, as  in  Thackeray,  the  emotions  described  are  those  of 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.        641 

conventional  life  merely.  This  is  not  to  be  said  in  dispar- 
agement of  either  artist.  It  is  rather  a  tribute  to  an  art- 
ist's knowledge  of  his  own  capacity  and  sphere  of  work 
that  he  only  attempts  to  draw  what  he  thoroughly  under- 
stands. But  it  is  proper  to  remark  of  Dickens  and  of 
Thackeray,  as  of  Balzac,  that  the  life  they  described  was, 
after  all,  but  the  life  of  a  coterie  or  a  quarter,  and  that 
there  existed  side  by  side  with  their  field  of  work  a  whole 
world  of  emotion,  aspiration,  struggle,  defeat,  and  tri- 
umph, of  which  their  brightest  pages  do  not  give  a  single 
suggestion.  This  is  the  more  curious  to  observe  because 
of  the  third  peculiarity  which  Dickens  and  Thackeray  had 
in  common — a  love  for  the  purely  ideal  and  romantic  in 
fiction.  There  are  many  critics  who  hold  that  Dickens 
in  "  Barnaby  Rudge"  and  the  "  Tale  of  Two  Cities,"  Thack- 
eray in  "  Esmond,"  exhibited  powers  which  vindicated  for 
their  possessors  a  very  rare  infusion  of  that  higher  poetic 
spirit  which  might  have  made  of  both  something  greater 
than  the  painters  of  the  manners  of  a  day  and  a  class. 
But  to  paint  the  manners  of  a  day  and  a  class  as  Dickens 
and  Thackeray  have  done  is  to  deserve  fame  and  the  grati- 
tude of  posterity.  The  age  of  Victoria  may  claim  in  this 
respect  an  equality,  at  least,  with  that  of  the  reign  which 
produced  Fielding  and  Smollett;  for  if  there  are  some 
who  would  demand  for  Fielding  a  higher  place,  on  the 
whole,  than  can  be  given  either  to  Dickens  or  to  Thack- 
eray, there  are  not  many,  on  the  other  hand,  who  would 
not  say  that  either  Dickens  or  Thackeray  is  distinctly  su- 
perior to  Smollett.  The  age  must  claim  a  high  place  in 
art  which  could  in  one  department  alone  produce  two  such 
competitors.  Their  effect  upon  their  time  was  something 
marvellous.  People  talked  Dickens  or  thought  Thackeray. 
Passion,  it  will  be  seen,  counted  for  little  in  the  works 
of  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  Dickens,  indeed,  could  draw 
a  conventionally  or  dramatically  wicked  man  with  much 
power  and  impressiveness ;  and  Thackeray  could  suggest 
certain  forms  of  vice  with  wonderful  delicacy  and  yet  viv- 
VOL.  I. — 41 


642  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

Idness.  But  the  passions  which  are  common  to  all  human 
natures  in  their  elementary  moods  made  but  little  play  in 
the  novels  of  either  writer.  Both  were,  in  this  respect, 
for  all  their  originality  and  genius  in  other  ways,  highly 
and  even  exclusively  conventional.  There  was  apparently 
a  sort  of  understanding  in  the  mind  of  each — indeed  Thack- 
eray has  admitted  as  much  in  his  preface  to  "  Pendennis" 
■ — that  men  and  women  were  not  to  be  drawn  as  men  and 
women  are  known  to  be,  but  with  certain  reserves  to  suit 
conventional  etiquette.  It  is  somewhat  curious  that  the 
one  only  novel  writer  who  during  the  period  we  are  now 
considering  came  into  any  real  rivalry  with  them,  was  one 
who  depended  on  passion  altogether  for  her  material  and 
her  success.  The  novels  of  a  young  woman,  Charlotte 
Bronte,  compelled  all  English  society  into  a  recognition 
not  alone  of  their  own  sterling  power  and  genius,  but  also 
of  the  fact  that  profound  and  passionate  emotion  was  still 
the  stuff  out  of  which  great  fiction  could  be  constructed. 
"  Exultations,  agonies,  and  love,  and  man's  unconquerable 
mind,"  were  taken  by  Charlotte  Bronte  as  the  matter  out 
of  which  her  art  was  to  produce  its  triumphs.  The  nov- 
els which  made  her  fame,  "Jane  Eyre"  and  " Villette," 
are  positively  aflame  with  passion  and  pain.  They  have 
little  variety.  They  make  hardly  any  pretence  to  accu- 
rate drawing  of  ordinary  men  and  women  in  ordinary  life, 
or,  at  all  events,  under  ordinary  conditions.  The  author- 
ess had  little  of  the  gift  of  the  mere  story-teller;  and  her 
own  peculiar  powers  were  exerted  sometimes  with  indiffer- 
ent success.  The  familiar  on  whom  she  depended  for  her 
inspiration  would  not  always  come  at  call.  She  had  little 
genuine  relish  for  beauty,  except  the  beauty  of  a  weird  mel- 
ancholy and  of  decay.  But  when  she  touched  the  chord  of 
elementary  human  emotion  with  her  best  skill,  then  it  was 
impossible  for  her  audience  not  to  feel  that  they  were  under 
the  spell  of  a  power  rare,  indeed,  in  our  well-ordered  days. 
The  absolute  sincerity  of  the  author's  expression  of  feel- 
ing lent  it  great  part  of  its  strength  and  charm.     Nothing 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.        643 

was  ever  said  by  her  because  it  seemed  to  society  the  right 
sort  of  thing  to  say.  She  told  a  friend  that  she  felt  sure 
that  "  Jane  Eyre"  would  have  an  effect  on  readers  in  gen- 
eral because  it  had  so  great  an  effect  on  herself.  It  would 
be  possible  to  argue  that  the  great  strength  of  the  books 
lay  in  their  sincerity  alone ;  that  Charlotte  Bronte  was  not 
so  much  a  woman  of  extraordinary  genius,  as  a  woman  who 
looked  her  own  feelings  fairly  in  the  face  and  painted 
them  as  she  saw  them.  But  the  capacity  to  do  this  would 
surely  be  something  which  we  could  not  better  describe 
than  by  the  word  genius.  Charlotte  Bronte  was  far  from 
being  an  artist  of  fulfilled  power.  She  is  rather  to  be  re- 
garded as  one  who  gave  evidence  of  extraordinary  gifts, 
which  might  with  time  and  care,  and  under  happier  artist- 
ic auspices,  have  been  turned  to  such  account  as  would 
have  made  for  her  a  fame  with  the  very  chiefs  of  her  tribe. 
She  died  at  an  age  hardly  more  mature  than  that  at  which 
Thackeray  won  his  first  distinct  literarj'  success;  much 
earlier  than  the  age  at  which  some  of  our  greatest  novel- 
ists brought  forth  their  first  completed  novels.  But  she 
left  a  very  deep  impression  on  her  time,  and  the  time  that 
has  come  and  is  coming  after  her.  No  other  hand  in  the 
age  of  Queen  Victoria  has  dealt  with  human  emotion  so 
powerfully  and  so  truthfully.  Hers  are  not  cheerful  nov- 
els. A  cold,  gray,  mournful  atmosphere  hangs  over  them. 
One  might  imagine  that  the  shadow  of  an  early  death  is 
forecast  on  them.  They  love  to  linger  among  the  glooms 
of  nature,  to  haunt  her  darkling  wintry  twilights,  to  study 
her  stormy  sunsets,  to  link  man's  destiny  and  his  hopes, 
fears,  and  passions  somehow  with  the  glare  and  gloom  of 
storm  and  darkness,  and  to  read  the  symbols  of  his  fate,  as 
the  foredoomed  and  passion-wasted  Antony  did,  in  the 
cloud-masses  that  are  "  black  vesper's  pageants. "  The  su- 
pernatural had  a  constant  vague  charm  for  Charlotte 
Bronte,  as  the  painful  had.  Man  was  to  her  a  being  torn 
between  passionate  love  and  the  more  ignoble  impulses  and 
ambitions  and  common-day  occupations  of  life.     Woman 


644  ^  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

was  a  being  of  equal  passion,  still  more  sternly  and  cruelly 
doomed  to  repression  and  renunciation.  It  was  a  strange 
fact  that  in  the  midst  of  the  splendid  material  successes 
and  the  quietly  triumphant  intellectual  progress  of  this 
most  prosperous  and  well-ordered  age,  when  even  in  its 
poetry  and  its  romance  passion  was  systematically  toned 
down  and  put  in  thrall  to  good  taste  and  propriety,  this 
young  writer  should  have  suddenly  come  out  with  her 
boots  all  thrilling  with  emotion,  and  all  protesting  in  the 
strongest  practical  manner  against  the  theory  that  the 
loves  and  hates  of  men  and  women  had  been  tamed'by  the 
process  of  civilization.  Perhaps  the  very  novelty  of  the  ap- 
parition was,  in  great  measure,  a  part  of  its  success.  Char- 
lotte Bronte  did  not,  indeed,  influence  the  general  public, 
or  even  the  literary  public,  to  anything  like  the  same  ex- 
tent that  Thackeray  and  Dickens  did.  She  appeared  and 
passed  away  almost  in  a  moment.  As  Miss  Martineau 
said  of  her,  she  stole  like  a  shadow  into  literature,  and 
then  became  a  shadow  again.  But  she  struck  very  deeply 
into  the  heart  of  the  time.  If  her  writings  were  only,  as 
has  been  said  of  them,  a  cry  of  pain,  yet  they  were  such 
a  cry  as,  once  heard,  lingers  and  echoes  in  the  mind  for- 
ever after.  Godwin  declared  that  he  would  write  in 
"  Caleb  Williams"  a  book  which  would  leave  no  man  who 
read  it  the  same  that  he  was  before.  Something  not  un- 
like this  might  be  said  of  "Jane  Eyre."  No  one  who  read 
it  was  exactly  the  same  that  he  had  been  before  he  opened 
its  weird  and  wonderful  pages. 

No  man  could  well  have  made  more  of  his  gifts  than. 
Lord  Lytton.  Before  the  coming  up  of  Dickens  and  Thack- 
eray he  stood  above  all  living  English  novelists.  Perhaps 
this  is  rather  to  the  reproach  of  the  English  fiction  of  the 
day  than  to  the  renown  of  Lord  Lytton.  But  even  after 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  and  Charlotte  Bronte,  and  later 
and  not  less  powerful  and  original  writers,  had  appeared 
in  the  same  field,  he  still  held  a  place  of  great  mark  in  lit- 
erature.    That  he  was  not  a  man  of  genius  is,  perhaps, 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.        645 

conclusively  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  was  able  so  read- 
ily to  change  his  style  to  suit  the  tastes  of  each  day.  He 
began  by  writing  of  fops  and  roii.es,  of  a  time  now  almost 
forgotten ;  then  he  made  heroes  of  highwaymen  and  mur- 
derers; afterward  he  tried  the  philosophic  and  mildly  di- 
dactic style;  then  he  turned  to  mysticism  and  spiritualism; 
later  still  he  wrote  of  the  French  Second  Empire.  What- 
ever he  tried  to  do  he  did  well.  Besides  his  novels,  he 
wrote  plays  and  poems;  and  his  plays  are  among  the  very 
few  modern  productions  which  manage  to  keep  the  stage. 
He  played,  too,  and  with  much  success,  at  being  a  states- 
man  and  an  orator.  Not  Demosthenes  himself  had  such 
difficulties  of  articulation  to  contend  against  in  the  begin- 
ning; and  Demosthenes  conquered  his  difficulties,  while 
some  of  those  in  the  way  of  Lord  Lytton  proved  uncon- 
querable. Yet  Lord  Lytton  did  somehow  contrive  to  be- 
come a  great  speaker,  and  to  seem  occasionally  like  a  great 
orator  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  at  the  very  least 
a  superb  phrase-maker ;  and  he  could  turn  to  account  every 
scrap  of  knowledge  in  literature,  art,  or  science  which  he 
happened  to  possess.  His  success  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons was  exactly  like  his  success  in  romance  and  the 
drama.  He  threw  himself  into  competition  with  men  of 
far  higher  original  gifts,  and  he  made  so  good  a  show  of 
contesting  with  them  that  in  the  minds  of  many  the  vic- 
tory was  not  clearly  with  his  antagonists.  There  was  al- 
ways, for  example,  a  considerable  class,  even  among  ed- 
ucated persons,  who  maintained  that  Lytton  was,  in  his 
way,  quite  the  peer  of  Thackeray  and  Dickens.  His  plays, 
or  some  of  them,  obtained  a  popularity  only  second  to 
those  of  Shakespeare ;  and  although  nobod)'  cared  to  read 
them,  yet  people  were  always  found  to  go  and  look  at 
them.  When  Lytton  went  into  the  House  of  Commons  for 
the  second  time  he  found  audiences  which  were  occasion- 
ally tempted  to  regard  him  as  the  rival  of  Gladstone  and 
Bright.  Not  a  few  persons  saw  in  all  this  only  a  sort  of 
superb  charlatanerie ;  and  indeed  it  is  certain  that  no  man 


646  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

ever  made  and  kept  a  genuine  success  in  so  many  differ- 
ent fields  as  those  in  which  Lord  Lytton  tried  and  seemed 
to  succeed.  But  he  had  splendid  qualities;  he  had  every- 
thing short  of  genius.  He  had  indomitable  patience,  in- 
exhaustible power  of  self-culture,  and  a  capacity  for  as- 
similating the  floating  ideas  of  the  hour  which  supplied 
the  place  of  originality.  He  borrowed  from  the  poet  the 
knack  of  poetical  expression,  and  from  the  dramatist  the 
trick  of  construction ;  from  the  Byronic  time  its  professed 
scorn  for  the  false  gods  of  the  world ;  and  from  the  more 
modem  period  of  popular  science  and  sham  mysticism  its 
extremes  of  materialism  and  magic ;  and  of  these  and  vari- 
ous other  borrowings  he  made  up  an  article  which  no  one 
else  could  have  constructed  out  of  the  same  materials. 
He  was  not  a  great  author;  but  he  was  a  great  literary 
man.  Mr.  Disraeli's  novels  belong  in  some  measure  to 
the  school  of  "  Pelham"  and  "  Godolphin."  But  it  should 
be  said  that  Mr.  Disraeli's  "Vivian  Grey"  was  published 
before  "  Pelham"  made  its  appearance.  In  all  that  be- 
longs to  political  life  Mr.  Disraeli's  novels  are  far  superior 
to  those  of  Lord  Lytton.  We  have  nothing  in  our  litera- 
ture to  compare  with  some  of  the  best  of  Mr.  Disraeli's 
novels  for  light  political  satire,  and  for  easy,  accurate 
characterization  of  political  cliques  and  personages.  But 
all  else  in  Disraeli's  novels  is  sham.  The  sentiment,  the 
poetry,  the  philosophy — ^all  these  are  sham.  They  have 
not  half  the  appearance  of  reality  about  them  that  Lytton 
has  contrived  to  give  to  his  efforts  of  the  same  kind.  In 
one  at  least  of  Disraeli's  latest  novels  the  political  sketches 
and  satirizing  became  sham  also. 

"  Alton  Locke"  was  published  nearly  thirty  years  ago. 
Then  Charles  Kingsley  became  to  most  boys  in  Great 
Britain  who  read  books  at  all  a  sort  of  living  embodiment 
of  chivalry,  liberty,  and  a  revolt  against  the  established 
order  of  class-oppression  in  so  man)^  spheres  of  oursociet)'. 
For  a  long  time  he  continued  to  be  the  chosen  hero  of 
young  men  with  the  youthful  spirit  of  revolt   in  them. 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.    First  Survey.       647 

with  dreams  of  Republics  and  ideas  about  the  equality  of 
man.  Later  on  he  commanded  other  admiration  for  other 
qualities,  for  the  championship  of  slave  systems,  of  op- 
pression, and  the  iron  reign  of  mere  force.  But  though 
Charles  Kingsley  always  held  a  high  place  somewhere  in 
popular  estimation,  he  is  not  to  be  rated  very  highly  as 
an  author.  He  described  glowing  scenery  admirably,  and 
he  rang  the  changes  vigorously  on  his  two  or  three  ideas 
— the  muscular  Englishman,  the  glory  of  the  Elizabethan 
discoveries,  and  so  on.  He  was  a  scholar,  and  he  wrote 
verses  which  sometimes  one  is  on  the  point  of  mistaking 
for  poetry,  so  much  of  the  poet's  feeling  have  they  in  them. 
He  did  a  great  many  things  very  cleverly.  Perhaps  if  he 
had  done  less  he  might  have  done  better.  Human  capa- 
city is  limited.  It  is  not  given  to  mortal  to  be  a  great 
preacher,  a  great  philosopher,  a  great  scholar,  a  great  poet, 
a  great  historian,  a  great  novelist,  and  an  indefatigable 
country  parson.  Charles  Kingsley  never  seems  to  have 
made  up  his  mind  for  which  of  these- callings  to  go  in  es- 
pecially; and  being,  with  all  his  versatility,  not  at  all 
many-sided,  but  strictly  one-sided  and  almost  one-ideaed, 
the  result  was  that,  while  touching  success  at  many  points, 
he  absolutely  mastered  it  at  none.  Since  his  novel "  West- 
ward Ho!"  he  never  added  anything  substantial  to  his 
reputation.  All  this  acknowledged,  however,  it  must  still 
be  owned  that  failing  in  this,  that,  and  the  other  attempt, 
and  never  achieving  any  real  and  enduring  success,  Charles 
Kingsley  was  an  influence  and  a  man  of  mark  in  the  Vic- 
torian Age. 

Perhaps  a  word  ought  to  be  said  of  the  rattling  romances 
of  Irish  electioneering,  love-making,  and  fighting,  which 
set  people  reading  "Charles  O'Malley'  and  "  Jack  Hin- 
ton,"  even  when  "  Pickwick"  was  still  a  novelty.  Charles 
Lever  had  wonderful  animal  spirits  and  a  broad,  bright 
humor.  He  was  quite  genuine  in  his  way.  He  afterward 
changed  his  style  completely,  and  with  much  success ;  and 
will  be  found  in  the  later  part  of  the  period  holding  just 


648  A  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

the  same  relative  place  as  in  the  earlier,  just  behind  the 
foremost  men,  but  in  manner  so  different  that  he  might 
be  a  new  writer  who  had  never  read  a  line  of  the  royster- 
ing  adventures  of  Light  Dragoons  which  were  popular 
when  Charles  Lever  first  gave  them  to  the  world.  There 
was  nothing  great  about  Lever,  but  the  literature  of  the 
Victorian  period  would  not  be  quite  all  that  we  know  it 
without  him.  There  were  many  other  popular  novelists 
during  the  period  we  have  passed  over,  some  in  their  day 
more  popular  than  either  Thackeray  or  Charlotte  Bronte. 
Many  of  us  can  remember,  without  being  too  much  ashamed 
of  the  fact,  that  there  were  early  days  when  Mr.  James 
and  his  cavaliers  and  his  chivalric  adventures  gave  nearly 
as  much  delight  as  Walter  Scott  could  have  given  to  the 
youth  of  a  preceding  generation.  But  Walter  Scott  is  with 
us  still,  young  and  old,  and  poor  James  is  gone.  His  once 
famous  solitary  horseman  has  ridden  away  into  actual  soli- 
tude, and  the  shades  of  night  have  gathered  over  his  heroic 
form. 

The  founding  of  Punch  drew  together  a  host  of  clever 
young  writers,  some  of  whom  made  a  really  deep  mark  on 
the  literature  of  their  time,  and  the  combined  influence  of 
whom  in  this  artistic  and  literary  undertaking  was,  on  the 
whole,  decidedly  healthy.  Thackeray  was  by  far  the 
greatest  of  the  regular  contributors  to  Punch  in  its  earlier 
days.  But  "  The  Song  of  the  Shirt"  appeared  in  its  pages, 
and  some  of  the  brightest  of  Douglas  Jerrold's  writings 
made  their  appearance  there.  Punch  was  a  thoroughly 
English  production.  It  had  little  or  nothing  in  common 
with  the  comic  periodicals  of  Paris.  It  ignored  absolutely 
and  of  set  purpose  the  whole  class  of  subjects  which  make 
up  three-fourths  of  the  stock  in  trade  of  a  French  satirist. 
The  escapades  of  husbands  and  the  infidelities  of  wives 
form  the  theme  of  by  far  the  greater  number  of  the  humor- 
ous sketches  with  pen  or  pencil  in  Parisian  comicalities. 
Pujich  kept  altogether  aloof  from  such  unsavory  subjects. 
It  had  an  advantage,  of  course,  which  was  habitually  de- 


The  Literature  of  the  Reign.     First  Survey.       649 

nied  to  the  French  papers;  it  had  unlimited  freedom  of 
political  satire  and  caricature.  Politics  and  the  more  triv- 
ial troubles  and  trials  of  social  life  gave  subjects  to  Punch. 
The  inequalities  of  class,  and  the  struggles  of  ambitious 
and  vain  persons  to  get  into  circles  higher  than  their  own, 
or  at  least  to  imitate  their  manners — these  supplied  for 
Punch  the  place  of  the  class  of  topics  on  which  French 
papers  relied  when  they  had  to  deal  with  the  domestic  life 
of  the  nation.  Punch  started  by  being  somewhat  fiercely 
radical,  but  gradually  toned  away  into  a  sort  of  intelligent 
and  respectable  Conservatism.  Its  artistic  sketches  were 
from  first  to  last  admirable.  Some  men  of  true  genius 
wrought  for  it  with  the  pencil  as  others  did  with  the  pen. 
Doyle,  Leech,  and  Tenniel  were  men  of  whom  any  school 
of  art  might  well  be  proud.  A  remarkable  sobriety  of 
style  was  apparent  in  all  their  humors.  Of  later  years 
caricature  has  had  absolutely  no  place  in  the  illustrations 
to  Punch.  The  satire  is  quiet,  delicate,  and  no  doubt  su- 
perficial. It  is  a  satire  of  manners,  dress,  and  social  ways 
altogether.  There  is  justice  in  the  criticism  that  of  late, 
more  especially,  the  pages  of  Punch  give  no  idea  whatever 
of  the  emotions  of  the  English  people.  There  is  no  sug- 
gestion of  grievance,  of  bitterness,  of  passion,  or  pain.  It 
is  all  made  up  of  the  pleasures  and  annoyances  of  the  kind 
of  life  which  is  inclosed  in  a  garden  party.  But  it  must 
be  said  that  Punch  has  thus  always  succeeded  in  maintain- 
ing a  good,  open,  convenient,  neutral  ground,  where  young 
men  and  maidens,  girls  and  boys,  elderly  politicians  and 
staid  matrons,  law,  trade,  science,  all  sects  and  creeds, 
may  safely  and  pleasantly  mingle.  It  is  not  so,  to  be  sure, 
that  great  satire  is  wrought.  A  Swift  or  a  Juvenal  is  not 
thus  to  be  brought  out.  But  a  votary  of  the  present  would 
have  his  answer  simple  and  conclusive :  We  live  in  the  age 
of  Punch;  we  do  not  live  in  the  age  of  Juvenal  or  Swift. 

END    OF    VOL,    I. 


MS 
V.f 


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